Every human’s
mind has a Storyteller... a small being who sits in the
mind and tells stories to the human. That Storyteller
is not there when the human is born. As soon as the new
human is able to understand stories-- in tones of voice,
facial expressions, and later with words -- the Storytellers
living around that new human put the seeds of their stories
into the mind of the new human. And they grow there, and
become strong, and bear much fruit.
You were once
a new human. When you popped into this world, the Storytellers
knew it was their job to teach you their stories. Many
of those stories were based on fear... fear that you will
be rejected if you are not good enough, not smart enough,
not rich enough, not beautiful enough, not handsome enough,
not thin enough, just Not Enough. The Storytellers taught
you that you had to be perfect in order to be accepted.
The Storytellers taught you that nobody is perfect. Only
God is perfect. They taught you that you could never be
God, and yet you had to be perfect.
The storyteller's
stories were often confusing, contradictory-- yet as a
new human, you had no choice but to accept them as true.
A fish living in water has no way of knowing air. A new
human, living in that ocean of stories, has no way to
know anything beyond those stories.
The nature of
stories is that they are only true for the Storyteller
who owns them. They are not true for anyone else. There
cannot be a True story, or a Right story, or everyone
would agree on everything. Even if everyone, everywhere,
did agree, it would still be a story. It would be a description
of the beliefs and agreements that were once learned and
held in the mind. Only that, nothing more.
The recent events
of terrorism in our country present us with a story from
other Storytellers that is, in the context of our story,
incomprehensible. The terrorists' Storytellers say that
their goal is to create terror in us, to create terror
in our lives, to teach us that we will never be safe again.
Even the news media says America will never be the same
-- they also teach us the terrorists' new story: "We
will now live in fear and not be safe." The images
of planes hitting buildings are now implanted in our minds,
and the Storyteller tells stories about them over and
over and over. The media compounds our fear, telling us
stories of Anthrax and poisoning water supplies.
Every time the
Storyteller tells a story about fear, every time your
storyteller reads or listens to or watches a story about
fear, it creates fear in the human mind. It creates terror
in the human mind. Every time your Storyteller tells you
a story that creates fear and terror in your mind, your
storyteller has become a terrorist. Every time you are
the terrorist, every time you allow your Storyteller to
tell you a story that creates fear, the foreign terrorists
have succeeded.
Of course there
are terrorists in the world, because there is a terrorist
in your mind: your Storyteller. Now your Storyteller has
learned new stories with which to terrorize you even more
than it used to. It used to terrorize you by telling you
stories that said that you would not be loved unless you
made more money or were slimmer or younger or had fewer
wrinkles. But now your Storyteller is learning new stories
about violent acts that you cannot predict or control,
and you are probably feeling more fear.
It seems to me
that the way to end terrorism is to end terrorism in our
own minds, to quit believing the stories we tell ourselves
that create fear and terror in our own minds. The fear
that we feel is real, but the stories that we tell ourselves
that create the fear are simply stories. You have a choice
about what stories you allow your Storyteller to tell
you. You have a choice about what stories to believe.
What stories are
you choosing to believe? Are they stories that create
fear and terror in your mind and your body? Or are they
stories that create love, peace and harmony inside of
you? You can choose. Maybe we can't eliminate terrorism
in the world, maybe we can't find all the right people
to kill so we can feel safe again. But perhaps we can,
and do, have a choice not to be our own terrorists. Perhaps,
when we are no longer terrorizing
ourselves-- whether in fear about how much we weigh or
in fear from imagining a story of an agonizing death caused
by some foreign agent-- we can live in peace within ourselves.
If we all live in peace with ourselves, surely we will
live in peace with each other.
