In both case we are making or sharing stories, whether they are ones we tell ourselves or those that others tell us. 

Every culture there has ever been has understood the value of stories and metaphors in making sense of our experiences and in bonding us together into communities. 

 

Some time ago we watched 'Saving Mr. Banks', starring that remarkably versatile actor Tom Hanks. It was nice, entertaining but for me nothing out of the ordinary, until we arrived at one truly stunning scene. 

 

P. L. Travers has just run away from Walt Disney because she doesn't like what he wants to do with her creation Mary Poppins, and there she is, sitting tearfully and alone in her flat back home, when there is a knock at the door. Lo and behold, it is the great man himself, come personally all the way across the pond to persuade and reassure. 

 

Now I'm coming to it.

 

He is determined to win her trust and to reassure her of his integrity and his care for her creation, and as they sit by the fire together (a very good place for story telling, actually!) he begins to tell the story of his own life, which began very hard. 

 

And then he says, 'I'm tired of remembering it like that'.'

I think this is so powerful that I'm going to repeat to myself what he said. 

 

I'm tired of remembering it like that. 

 

What really grabbed me is the implication that we have a choice in how we remember things. Certainly the things that happened have some objective reality - we were in a particular place at a particular time with particular people - but it is we ourselves who provide the meaning. And that can change, if we change the way we think about it. In fact every time we get a memory out to look at it, we put it back in a slightly different form, and we have some influence over that. 

 

As Walt Disney goes on to say in that beautiful scene, ' We storytellers, we give hope.' 

 

What hopeful story will you look at over Christmas and New Year? (I will probably plump for 'It's a Wonderful Life' - again!)