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Sometimes a story finds the storyteller and not the other way around. - Neverwas.
At a water machine on the Big Island of Hawai’i, waiting to fill their gallon bottles, a customer in line talked with the storyteller.
He related how his and another German family traveling in Africa came to a village where a tribal law prohibited touching a sickly new-born. It was for the survival of the fittest. His father picked up a near-death baby, held him in his arms and watched the ash-pale skin return to its normal ebony. Later the German family adopted the infant as their own.
The story, too wonderful to hide, was written into a rhyming poem, “African Baby .”
On the hill of a walking path, a hiker told the story of her cousin Ali. Drafted into the Iranian army, he considered how each Iraqi man had a family like he had, and how those families would suffer if he should take a life. He reflected that if it were not for the geography and politics of their countries, he could easily be friends with an Iraqi.
Then, in the heat of battle Ali came face-to-face with an Iraqi soldier. Their weapons drawn, and seeing each other in the eyes, Ali refused to shoot and was shot in the shoulder. From the hospital bed he told his cousin that he felt the Iraqi did not want to shoot him either or the aim would not have missed his heart. This tale was crafted into the poem, “A Soldier’s Choice .”
After his brother died, words to a song he had written a few weeks before, were found. Was the song prophetic? Read "Mark's Song " with excerpts from his tape letter.
In the cathedral square of a Mediterranean port city, a former bar bouncer told of his experience with a form of light-touch healing called Reiki. He said that one evening on the job after the healing sessions, a customer became unruly. The bouncer started to raise his arm against the man as he’d done many times before. But he could no longer use aggression, it just wasn’t in him anymore. After that, he left the job. The essence of this happening was captured in a short story, “The Bouncer Who Couldn’t Bounce.”
A woman approached the storyteller at a gathering and asked for a Reiki healing session. Her story, unveiled in time, was of being assaulted by her father and rejected by her community. After the healing sessions, she returned to her community and now helps other women who were sexually abused. Her story was set to rhyming poetry in “Blossoming Rose .”
In the shadow of Mount Shasta, at the headwaters of the Sacramento River, the storyteller witnessed a scene of unconditional love and compassion in a gathering of friends. He wrote it into the short story, “Healing with the Headwaters .”
A flute player just released from the Israeli army met an Iranian didgeridoo player by chance. The two men became the best of friends through the harmony of their music. From this emerged the short story “Didgeridoo and the Flute .”
Each of these incidents contains what V. Sean River calls an “act of peace.” Through the technology of the internet he invites all who know such stories to have them re-told on the Acts of Peace web site.
At this site, people gather in a virtual worldwide fire circle and re-visit courageous acts of peace and compassion in poems and short stories.
Tell me a story -
and it will live in my heart forever.
Indian Proverb
Copyright © 2008 Gary R. Smith
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