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No longer strangers, no longer afraid

As long as we look out at each other only through the masks of our composure, we are looking through hard eyes. But as the masks drop and we see the suffering and courage and brokenness and deeper dignity underneath, we truly start to respect each other as fellow human beings. ~ F. Scott Peck,

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Our power to manipulate stories

Computer graphics are so sophisticated these days it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake. These two videos are clearly in the latter category. No one watching them would believe a squirrel can play hacky sack or a penguin become a table tennis whiz.

The ads are no less fun for that. Both tell stories.

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Tugging the heart with an ad story

I generally consider myself fairly immune to advertising, but the ads for Apple’s FaceTime app for iPhone4 makes me want to run right out and buy this smart phone. And I don’t even carry a cell phone.

What so successfully bypasses my normal resistance is the stories. In this series of ads we people separated

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Narrating the Gulf oil spill

I’m noticing the different ways people are choosing to tell the story of the oil spill. There are no edges to the disaster. Even the beginning has spiky fingers. How do we deal with oil-soaked birds, dying turtles, the shattered lives?

Here are eight of the stories people have created to make sense of the senseless.

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Overturning stereotypes with a new story

It might seem a stretch to include this video in the Story Route blog, but it seems to me this is the kind of story that can completely upend stereotypes and spur creation of a new story.

Things have changed a great deal since I picked up a skipping rope and began jumping away. That was

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What color/colour are your stories?

Artist Isa D’Arleans is originally from France but has made her home in Seattle for many years. I met her when visiting a friend there. She is vivacious, talented, and a deep pool of thought.

Recently, she started a blog, Live In Colors that explores what it means to be fully alive. She is also

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Hey, Doc, I'm a story, not just a symptom

Having moved so many times in my adult life, I’ve rarely had the chance to really connect with “my” doctors. Some make it easier than others. They are the ones who know how to listen, who want to know the context of whatever symptoms walk through the door. They want to know my story.

A doctor

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Storyteller in the news

It isn’t every day a storyteller is featured on Good Morning America, but that’s where Northern Ireland’s Liz Weir found herself in July 2009. When I watched the clip and read the accompanying article, I traveled back to my first meeting with one of Ireland’s premier storytellers and a woman whose friendship is a jewel

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Same street, different story

Stories matter. They matter so much we will cling to them even when they are no longer working, even when they are contrary to the evidence of our own eyes.

I’m thinking of a story, of course. In this case, it’s the story of two neighbours. The location is Rochester, New York. The time is the

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The unpatterned restlessness

When I read Hole in the Sky: A Memoir, I knew I had found an author who spoke the language of my spirit. So I looked for other books by William Kittredge. In Owning It All I found passage after passage that resonated for me. This is one of them. Fortunately, his books are still

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