The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

Jonathan Gottschall

2012

271 pages / 5 hours and 32 minutes

Nonfiction

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Okay. Occasionally this happens. I get hooked on a book because of the title. Such was the case with Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. But in this case, which happens much more rarely, the book is every bit as good as the title. The author basically argues that human beings are virtually hardwired for story. This seems right to me. I cannot enumerate all the joys of this book, but I do want to point out an insight that has enormously influenced how I do pastoring.

We all have a story to tell about ourselves, and we are going to be the hero of our own story in one way or another. The story that we tell about ourselves won’t precisely correspond to reality. This is something different than straightforward lying, for we believe that the story we’re telling is accurate. Anyone who has tried to adjudicate a conflict has faced the dilemma of two parties having very different versions of the same events and both being utterly persuaded that their version is the right one. Of course, while other people do this, this could not possibly be true of me!

Everyone views themselves and the world in a way that they believe to be true. It is the story they tell. And even with people who seem a bit loony to me, I have to remember that they process the world in a way that makes sense to them. And in fact, I too must have a story that I can live with, and that story I tell must somehow justify the decisions of my life. It is amazing how this one little insight changes the way I look at people. They are trying to make sense of the world just like I am. They need a story that will work for them.

I should point out that if the stories that we tell about ourselves stray too far from reality, we would call that a form of mental illness. But some distortion is virtually inevitable in our stories and the stories of others. One of the great challenges in doing life is not the lies that we willingly tell, but the ones we are totally unaware of.

This is one of those must-read books for preachers. One of the primary tasks we face is to give our congregants a story to live by. And to consider how the story intersects with all of the stories that people bring is one of the most basic tasks of preaching. To take it a step further, thinking about how the story rewrites or reinterprets our own – and even changes it in some fundamental way – is worthy of a lifetime's consideration.

Stories really do make us human. This witty, insightful, and utterly entertaining book might just help make us a little more human. Who doesn't love a good story?