Jesus Told Stories

When people asked Jesus a question, he often answered with a story, and he usually invited his listeners to interact with him in the telling or interpreting. As Christians, we are often called "people of the book" because we are part of a faith tradition grounded in stories.

So it makes sense that we should tell stories to and with our children. I'm not talking today about Bible stories, or even about books, but about stories that you and the children create together. It's a way of deepening the imagination of our children,  and it's fun.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to make up stories about a green goblin that lived in the rough of a golf course. He had been a lonely goblin until he was befriended by a golfer (not a very good golfer, but a very good man) who began to take the goblin home to play with his children and to share family meals.

When I was a little older, I fell in love with a book that had belonged to my father when he was growing up: Made-to-Order Stores by Dorothy Canfield (you can see by the photo just how well-loved that book has been over the generations), in which a little boy named Jimmy would come up with five ingredients for a story, and someone in the family would create an impromptu story using those ingredients (some examples: a sack of potatoes, false teeth, a busted bicycle, a hole in the ground, a polar bear). He also always wanted a little boy in the story.

When my own children were young, I combined those two -- the green goblin and the made-to-order stories. Jeremy and Micah would take turns coming up with ingredients for stories about a green goblin. Their green goblin lived in the trunk of a gnarled old tree instead of on a golf course, and (because it was their favorite breakfast) he ate instant maple and brown sugar oatmeal, which (in the stories) we would set out for him. To this day, when I see a particularly gnarly tree, my first thought  is, "Oh, a green goblin tree!" and oatmeal is always goblin food. Over time, the green goblin acquired friends: a wood elf (small enough to live in those fairy houses I suggested you build), and an owl, and they often had adventures together.

(This is a very simple fairy house I came across on Monhegan Island, Maine)

To model how this story-telling works,  I'm inviting you to send ingredients (from you and / or your children), and I'll choose from among them to come up with a new story. I call these "Goblin-to-Go" stories, because you can take them -- create them -- anywhere: on car trips, in waiting rooms, at the playground, while fixing supper, as part of bedtime.

Have fun thinking up ingredients -- and then be sure to send them!