Storytelling and Midrash

In my work life as a corporate trainer, facilitator, and manager I found that some of the ideas and concepts I wanted to convey to my students, team members, or employees were very difficult to articulate. After some less than successful attempts, I hit upon the idea of incorporating the concepts into stories. I realize now that it was not an original idea, but I found it to be particularly effective. Aesop used the technique as did the Grimm brothers. So, when I learned that much of the content of the Gospels are stories that were developed during the first century after Jesus died to convey some of the radically new concepts he taught, it did not take a lot of convincing for me to accept the idea. Continue reading

Remembered History?

One evening several years ago, my wife and I were invited to a function at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s Taliesin West. As part of the event, we were given an extensive tour of the property by a very eager and knowledgeable young docent. Our experience was enhanced by the fact that several of the people in our party were members of the Taliesin Fellowship and had studied on that property under Mr. Wright in the 1950’s. As we entered the drafting room the tour guide informed us that this was Mr. Wright’s favorite part of the facility and noted parenthetically that Mr. Wright never sat down when he was in this room. I noticed a strange reaction to that observation by several of the older members of the group, and later I asked them about it. Continue reading