#gatheringtogether

WHY GATHER?

A Day (or week) in the Life of a Storyteller, Episode #14

Today is my 28th birthday, which means that I have been a voting citizen for exactly 10 years. Each time I’ve voted has been by absentee ballot, and it was only in the last few years that I began to bring my actual ballot to the physical poll station. I wasn’t sure why I started to bring it in, it would be much easier just to send it in the mail, but I felt like I was missing something. Sure enough, I was right.

Not that the act of handing my ballot over to the helper at the front table at the voting station at my public library was all that exciting, but there was something there, something I had been missing by just sending in my ballot through the mail.

This something was reinforced for me this last election season. I always figured that the reason why more people didn’t chose to do absentee ballots and vote by mail was because their particular state didn’t allow it. But then I began to hear people in California talk about the challenges of getting to the polls on voting day and having to change work schedules or figure out different bus schedules to be there during the allotted time.

I kept thinking, then why not vote by mail? Was it just that people didn’t know the process of how to change to an absentee ballot? Or was it something more…

I read an article from the news station Al Jazeera, about the early voting in North Carolina (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/10/north-carolina-early-voting-161022022224377.html), and it said that while there are many people that don’t do absentee ballots because they just don’t know how it works, there are many people that do understand and still choose to go out of their busy work day or family obligations to stand in line at the polling stations.

It painted a picture of people coming out to wait in line with chairs and snacks and a desire to engage in conversation with others. Many in line at the University City Regional Library voting center who had come out for early voting agreed that “the polls (are) one way to influence society, whether making choices about the president, justices or local leaders.”

But it’s more than just showing solidarity to the rest of the state, country or world; there’s something more about being with others in the space together for a common purpose. One woman described her attendance there by saying, “We’re fellowshipping,” as she conversed with other voters in line about healing and ways forward from political polarization and racial tension.

That right there is the something—the “fellowshipping” that occurs when we gather, for any reason, to be among others and experience a shared moment together.

I mean, why do we attend music festivals, or even just live music events? It’s not just that the quality of the sound of the music will be far better than listening at home on our iPod or radio—

We attend them also to be among others, to create a shared experience that bonds us, that pulls us into a liminal space (my anthropology background is going to come out here), where the normal routine and identity are suspended and we create together a new identity, a new possibility. When we leave those spaces we are changed, we emerge from the experience a little bit different (or sometimes profoundly different) than when we entered it.

What I’ve always loved about live storytelling, is what storytellers call that moment of “enchantment”, when all eyes and ears and imaginations are joined in a common experience—the experience of seeing and hearing and feeling a story with all our hearts at the same time, in the same space, together.

Enchantment is created because the teller is present, the audience members are present, and the story is one that has the potential to be meaningful (in its different ways) to all involved. It’s a little like a liminal space—where all else is suspended, and anything becomes possible.

So, why bother attending a live storytelling event when we can just listen to the Moth online? Why go to see live sports when we’ve got Cable TV and the Internet? Why attend that direct action or candlelight vigil when we can post and tweet and call and raise awareness from the comfort of our own homes?

Because like showing up to the polls on election day, by showing up at a live event (whatever that event may be), by gathering, we demonstrate what we care about, what we’re willing to leave the house for, and we get something more from that act of gathering than doing the same thing on our own.

Now, being an introvert, (and what I mean by that is that I recharge my energy by spending time alone or in the company of one person rather than many, that I need the quiet contemplation, the experience of processing what I’m feeling and thinking without other distracting stimuli from others), I understand that gathering is not what we always want to do. Often it is the opposite of what we want to do (Crowds! Lots of people! Please no!)

But more often than not, when I push myself to attend a gathering for a purpose I am passionate about (whether it be my favorite sport, an planned action for a cause, or a storytelling show), I find myself deeply grateful for the experience of connecting, of fellowshipping. And not just when the gathering involves those who have the same passion or values, but the growth that occurs when gathered for a purpose of conversing with those with different passions, values, and view points.

*

This last weekend, I attended a direct action at the Bank of America to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux and inform community members about the Dakota Access Pipeline, how the B of A funds it, and why that matters.

I stood with one other woman, a professor at the local university, and we held signs while attempting to engage in conversation with passersby heading in to the Bank or on their way to the ATM. We had a handful of positive interactions with people genuinely interested in having a conversation about the topic, and then there was one interaction that was not so positive.

I found myself in a verbal dispute with a man who expressed that he was on the opposite side of our issue, and I felt the words coming out of my mouth becoming thin—reduced to a black and white simplistic story—one that did not get at the Truth, and was not at the heart of our mission to encourage and inspire thoughtful conversation.

In the midst of it, my fellow sign holder placed a supportive hand on my shoulder and whispered, “It’s okay, let him go”, and gave me a nod of solidarity. I stopped my side of the dispute, and after a few last words the man went on his way.

My stomach knotted up and I felt a lump in my chest forming. I wished I could have handled the situation differently. I turned to my fellow activist and thanked her for her help in grounding me, pulling me out of the closed conversation, and reminding me of the need to stay open.

This experience, this challenge, it made me think, it made me question how I was staying open, or closing myself off to certain viewpoints. It made me grow. I came out of the shared experience of gathering in person, in solidarity for a common cause, different than when I went in.

*

A few nights later, the same group of organizers held a candlelight vigil at our local university campus. I attended, and stood quietly among those gathered, holding a flickering candle and standing in prayer. I thought about the contrast between the direct action gathering and this candlelight gathering, though very different models, both create the space for fellowshipping, and both hold space for shared visioning--*enchantment*--for participating in the collective creation of a better future for us all.

 One candle holds the flame that has the power to start a blazing fire--

But sometimes we don’t want a fire, we just want to see in the dark—and our candles shine brighter together.