Learning Ecclesiastes

The epic telling at this year's NOBS gathering is the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. Plus our small storytelling group suggested we tell stories of confession since we're now in the season of Lent. Ecclesiastes seems to me a confession of the human condition, so I thought I'd give it a go and see how far into it I get. Now that I've told half of chapter one to some encouraging friends, I feel spurred on to learn more of this marvelous story or quest. Like what happens after choir practice, I tend to sing the anthems during the week, I find myself mulling over the images that The Teacher has created: "meaningless, vanity, wearying, tiresome, nothing new under the sun'. I'm having fun with this thinking of the images evoked, rather than memorizing the words. I hope to have the first chapter ready to tell and then weave in a story from my experience.

Network of Biblical Storytellers (NOBS) Gathering 2007
We participated in the NOBS gathering for this year in Norcross, GA. The keynote speaker was David Rhoads, a professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He performed Paul's letter to the Galatians and Philemon. Having read those letters many times over the course of my nearly 40 years as a Christian I was impressed with the difference it made hearing and seeing them performed in their entirety. The impact from the non-verbal and auditory communication plus receiving the letters in full was amazing. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the Bible. Most likely, this is the way the first hearers in Galatia and among the church that met at Philemon's house received these letters.
We also attended workshops on dramatic tellings, hymns and Bible stories, epic tellings, and parallels between African moral tales and Bible stories.

This weekend we drove to Fair Park in Dallas to see the exhibit of Ancient Treasures of the Holy Land. I see it's in Dallas until July 28. You can see archaeological finds of the Bible lands and hear stories associated with them. I noted the evolution of pottery, how items such as lamps became smaller and more elaborately decorated. The displays were great, but the stories were worth listening to and made the experience more cohesive.

This Saturday some of us drove to the Heritage Park in Downtown Dallas to hear professional storytellers bend our ears. We enjoyed listening to their stories, some personal, some memorized, some rhyming, some ghost stories and some passed on through the network of other storytellers. In fact we were asked to share our own stories. What a treat! My favorite story of the afternoon? I think it was a toss up between why someone left a promising career as a lawyer to become a school teacher, and a rhyming story on what to eat. By the way, we're researching storytelling and how it relates to Bible translation. See our other blog called Blogim Stori.