John Miesen is a member of ICA Australia

I believe that for most of us, stories which sustain take hold in childhood and continue through our lives or are sometimes replaced with ones that are more relevant to life as we experience it.

My childhood collection of over 300 Superman comics would attest to the fact that the embodiment of good over evil, and the stories pertaining to that, sustained my understanding of what made the world a worthwhile place in which to live, and reinforced a belief system to which I aspired. Though I’ve mostly put aside those stories, (Star Wars anyone?), today I find my grounding in stories that give me a deeper understanding of life and sustain my sense of hope.

Strong Images
I have found that most stories that sustain me have a strong image associated with each of them whether it is an ancient tale, a parable or event like a wall being knocked down in Berlin. Other stories I rely on are associated with a revered person’s life: Jesus, Buddha, Nelson Mandela, Abraham, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, and other saints and heroes whose story is an example of how one embraces life’s truths.

Stories that sustain always carry within them a salient idea or concept about life; an understanding revealed about what makes the world go around and how you fit into it. Sometimes the idea revealed comes as amazing or mundane, comforting or uncomfortable, simple or all-encompassing. Whatever the case, I’m drawn to understand each in the context of my own experience and also in how others have appropriated the idea or concept. I then accept or reject it as true or not.

Conflict or Connectivity
History has demonstrated, and today’s oft-parochial conflicts remind us, that stories which sustain can be quite detrimental and entrenched into the psyche of a tribe, nation, particular culture or widely-held world view (i.e. East vs. West, middle-eastern wars, developed countries vs. developing countries, the 99% vs. the obscenely wealthy 1%). The consequences of this result in conflicts that are mostly irrational and produce nothing more than further strife down the road we share together.

Yet we have the capacity to embrace new stories that take us out of our comfort zones and push us into new ways to live positively. My Catholic Christian next-door-neighbours (back in the 1950s/60s) held strong beliefs that were contrary to my family’s Protestant Christian understandings. But a new story that sustained all of us (that “America the Beautiful” was the perfect “melting pot” of peoples on earth in which to live and prosper) gave us a way to transcend those religious differences and exist together productively on a secular common ground.

My attendance at the 8th Global Conference on Human Development in Kathmandu, Nepal, on the sub-Asian continent brought home to me the marvellous ability we have to create new stories and work together for the betterment of humankind. The Conference, held every four years since 1984 in some part of the world, gave people from over 35 nations an opportunity to spend a week together working on six areas of common concern: Growing a New Sense of Leadership, Reshaping Education for the 21st Century, Promoting Peace Building and Good Governance, Building a Viable Future on Planet Earth, Building Strategies for Comprehensive Development, and Resourcing Human Development.

From that week together we went away with not only practical strategies to put to use and viable connections with others around the world, but also a story about that which gives sustenance to our daily lives and endeavours.
The experience of working with and rubbing shoulders with like-minded people of all ages (invariably younger than me) and from every religion, culture and perspective imaginable, put me in a mindful state of rehearsing the stories that sustain me and give me hope.

A Dynamic Dialogue
During the Conference I was drawn again and again to the narrative and image of the Earthrise as a story that sustains me today. Its image kept popping up seemingly everywhere at the Conference.

When we as humans living on the earth glimpsed, for the first time the earth rising above the moon in space, it forever reformed my understanding of our place in the universe, our precious planet and our common humanity. And I was not alone in that transformational experience.

The Earthrise story embodies within it new ideas and realities about our future; the “Global Village”, the “Butterfly Effect”, world-wide connectivity and sharing, common care for all of creation, and most of all, a new sense of possibility, rebirth and new beginnings as one human family caring for each and every one. So, like the other stories that sustain me, it becomes more than an idea or concept; it induces a dialogue which I continue to have between myself, my world, and the understanding I have of my life’s journey.

I believe it’s a story we all can draw from. It enhances the meaningful stories we hold dear, regardless of the religion or belief system from which those other stories arose. And it gives us permission to rise above our prejudices and embrace the world as a gift we were born into. And to take that story and share it with those whose lives we daily touch.