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“Signature Stories”
Early in April, I attended a continuing education program for ministers and lay leaders. Some of the skills we talked about are so simple that it’s easy to take them for granted. For instance, we talked about the stories that each community tells about itself. Usually factual (at least in large part), these stories hold up certain values that the congregation embodies, or important episodes in its history. They present an understanding of the good times and the hard times, of the experience that has been shared in the process of creation of a community.
The program leader, Alice Mann, called the particular stories that a congregation celebrates as most essential its “signature stories.” These stories hold the feeling, the sense of the community in a way that Board meeting minutes rarely capture. Stories capture the fun and the faithfulness, the hope and the effort the effort that hope motivates, and the sense of call that earlier generations felt and acted upon. They can celebrate the community’s “glory days,” or they can keep some folks from getting “too big for their britches.” These signature stories may not, in fact, tell who we are, but they certainly tell who we think we are!
Stories from the past live in the present. Even today, stories from a generation ago can serve as gateways into the congregation. There is a real sense in which we enter the community of this Fellowship by learning its stories. People who don’t know the signature stories of this congregation may be members in the formal sense, but they remain “outsiders” in at least one important sense.
Alice Mann’s comments about stories have challenged me to reflect on a trio of questions:
What stories of this Fellowship are most important to our sense of ourselves?
How do make it possible for newcomers to learn these stories that are at the center of our sense of this community? In other words, how do we share these stories?
How can we be intentional about preserving our signature stories for the future?
I’ve heard stories about this Fellowship since before I arrived in Carbondale. I’ve heard stories of checking for Unitarians in card-index boxes at Southern Illinois University, and of youth sitting in at segregated lunch counters here in Carbondale. I’ve heard stories of carrying the chalice flame across town from one building to another, and of carrying compassion and love to those suffering from AIDS in Zambia. I’ve been a small part of a few stories myself, like the Empty Bowls campaign on behalf of Good Samaritan Ministries, Rainbow Café, and the beginning of the Mt. Vernon UU Fellowship. As I see it, these are some of our signature stories.
Beginning this summer, and over the next year, I’d like to work with others in the Fellowship to make sure that we keep our stories present and accessible to all. Are you interested in this? If so, I invite you to help by (1) pointing out stories that you think we ought to preserve and celebrate; (2) suggesting those who can share them, perhaps from different perspectives; (3) identifying ways in which we can keep these stories alive within our Fellowship; and/or (4) volunteering to help!
Perhaps this could be a first step toward updating our Fellowship’s official history. Our last published history tells our story up to 1993. In case you haven’t noticed, a lot has happened since then!
Yours in celebration of the past (and the future, too), Bill S.
