Stories

Disclaimer:  I wrote this on Saturday after we had a bit of challenging encounter with Jewish settlers. So when I say yesterday-I am referring to is Friday, January 13^th.   I struggled for a while with whether or not to share these words and to share my struggles.  In the end, I decided it was worth it because this is part of the reality of my time here.  If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them and you can e-mail me gastal01@luther.edu, while this is true of any of my blogs, I feel it is particularly important on this one. 

I love stories.  Just ask anybody who knows me decently well; they will tell you I love stories.  I love hearing them, reading them, collecting them and sharing them. One of my closest friends and I have a tradition of sharing “Funny Random Stories of the Day.” I eagerly look forward to receiving my daily StoryPeople story.  In fact, just short of 2 years ago, using some of these StoryPeople stories, I stood in the CFL Main Hall at Luther and gave my senior chapel, all about the role of stories in my four years of college.   As a social work major, I learned about the healing power of allowing people to share their stories.  Much of my senior year revolved around stories from my time spent in Journey Conversations to my second semester internship with Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC).   Through these experiences, I heard over and over again that nobody could tell you that your story was wrong.  After all, it was YOUR experience, YOUR human-ness, YOUR STORY!  It belongs to you, you own it, and only you know its reality in your life.  I have always firmly believed in the power of the story to heal, to bring people together, to find common ground, to see the human in the “other.”

However, during my time here in Jerusalem/West Bank my firm belief in the power of stories has begun to crumble a bit and yesterday, the foundation of that belief was shattered.   Yesterday, as a YAGM continuing education day we toured some of the Jewish settlements in the Jerusalem area.   As a part of this tour, we sat in the homes of 2 settlers, and had a third as our tour guide.  We listened to them tell their stories.  Stories about their faith, stories about the settlements, stories about why they choose to settle. 

As I listened to the stories they shared, I heard the same story that I hear every day from the Palestinians I work with daily:  stories of oppression, stories of victimization, stories of stolen land, stories of an ancient claim to land.  However, in these stories, the settlers, Israeli’s and sometimes Jews in general, took the place of the Palestinians.   What I heard was a complete role reversal.

When either group tells these stories, the “other” is a made-up people.  The “other” is terroristic and violent.  The “other” must be feared.  The “other” wants to wipe “us’ of the face of the planet.  The “other” stole the land.  With these two conflicting narratives that seem to stand in complete opposition of each other, there is little recognition of each other’s human-ness, little recognition of each other’s pain and little recognition of the validity of each other’s stories.  

In short, these stories have become tools to cause division and incite fear as opposed to the tools to create healing and bring comfort that I had believed them to be.

Because of the place where I live and the people I encounter on a daily basis, I sympathize with one side of the story over the other.  My experiences tend to give credibility to one side of the story over the other.  My understanding of facts and history favors one side of the story over the other.  But, as previously mentioned, it is not my place to tell the other side that their story is wrong.   So what happens when stories stand so completely in opposition?  What happens when my experience completely contradicts somebody else’s story? One side has to be wrong….right?

Before we came here, we were told:

Come for a week, you want to write a book.

Come for a month, you want to write an article

Come for a year, you no longer know what to write.

In many ways, yesterday marked that turning point.  Yesterday was the day that my brain finally began to understand how complex the situation here is.  It isn’t just about ownership of land, it is about the STORY of the land.  It isn’t about the nationality you claim, it is about the STORY of the nation.   It isn’t just about having human rights, it is about having the STORY of your human-ness recognized. 

They say that the winner writes history.  I am learning just how true that statement is. How the winner decides to tell the story here will make all the difference in the world.   My hope is that some day, the stories that will be told, and that I will be able to tell my children, will recognize the pain, the joy and  the human-ness of both sides.

For now, I will begin to pick-up the pieces of my shattered foundation of my belief in the power of stories, because the truth is, I do still believe. I still believe they can bring people healing.  I still believe in the power of stories to bring people together.  I still believe they can bring people to a place where they can see the human in a person who was previously “other.” The power of stories does not exist solely in the story itself, but also in the way they are used. 

While yesterday was incredibly frustrating, I will continue to listen to stories, read stories, collect stories and share stories. For now, I will continue to struggle with these stories, and figure out how they work together.  I will continue to use the stories that I hear as tools for good and tools for change.  Because at the end of the day, it is our stories, combined with the stories around us, that make us who we are and give us our human-ness.