GoTell Hosts MABS Retreat
Every other December, GoTell hosts the final retreat for the Academy for Biblical Storytelling Master level students at our home in Dayton. It is always a joyful responsibility with super interesting, creative, and delightful people. But the graduating class of 2020 is extra special.
For starters, it is the largest master’s class thus far. Secondly, it is the first all-female group. And then there’s the somewhat unusual case that no one has dropped out of the group along the way. Everyone was up-to-snuff on their various challenging assignments, on track to graduate in August. You can see why Dean Tracy Radosevic (pictured above telling a story as well as with her students) is so pleased.
Furthermore, two students came from other continents: one from Asia (South Korea) and the other from South America (Brazil). Lastly, most everyone had suffered serious loss since beginning their ABS program two years ago. Perhaps that is why the group seemed so close, having walked with each other through deep valleys. Maybe also why the storytelling at our home that week was so extraordinary.
In any case, come to the 2020 Festival Gathering in Dayton next August and see them graduate!
The Politics of the Coming of the Son of Man
by Tom Boomershine
In the first week of Advent, Tom wrote a commentary on Matthew 24:36-44 as he reflected on the 2019-2020 lectionary year focus on Matthew’s Gospel. An excerpt follows.
Matthew’s presents the Son of Man as an apocalyptic vision of a new age being inaugurated in which the politics of Jesus will be established. Prior to this new age, their empires will be destroyed and the elect will be gathered to save them from destruction. This new age of the reign of the Son of Man is a promise of a new government. In Matthew’s context in the aftermath of the Jewish-Roman War, with its catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, this new age was a promise that the angels of Rome would be defeated, and the Son of Man triumph.
Download a PDF of the full commentary. More resources on this scripture available on its GoTell story page.
“Memory Need Not Fail Us”
Biblical storytellers, especially new ones, and most especially “mature” ones, share a common concern, okay… FEAR: our memory will fail us.
So we have the story…
- available on a piece of paper in our pocket
- at our feet on the floor in 18 point
- written very tiny on our hand
- glued to a fan we use as a prop (now exactly what story was that for?)
- printed on a scroll when we are lucky enough to have a decree or scroll referenced in our story
- entrusted to someone in the front pew, prepared to prompt us
- in a Bible on the table strategically opened to our story.
You probably can add to the list of creative techniques for assuaging our fear that our memory will fail us.
A lot of people I know who are, as they say, “50 or better,” just won’t even try to learn a story by heart, much less tell one by heart, because they are so sure their memory will fail them.
Good News!!! At least on the aging front. My daughter alerted me to an article in the Sunday, Jan. 12 New York Times written by a neuroscientist. It offers the comforting news that “memory impairment is not inevitable” and in fact, “some aspects of memory actually get better as we age.”
So take heart, and learn that story, for memory need not fail us. The process of getting a biblical story embedded in your memory banks will strengthen your memory-making capabilities.
Read the full New York Times article by Daniel J. Levitin which is adapted from his book, “Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives.”
