I don't want to be a throw away line

Why tell stories?

I posted this comment earlier today over at Rachelle Gardner's blog .. in response to her broad question of 'why people wanna be published.'

My take is this .. I'm posting my original comment to her .. here:

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I can't speak for the many.

However, I'm inspired to publish stories because .. like Eugene Peterson explains (quote below), I use story to invite people in to a world larger than they perhaps imagined .. for the purpose of sharing a nugget of something someone might need in a way they might not have thought about.

If I have something to share that will help open up depths with a person that they didn't know they had.. that is something .. to use my words to help someone (me included).. that is the reason.

"...stories invite us into a world larger than ourselves.. our lives are stories..they have plots, they have intent.. we're never the only person in the story.. if we just live within ourselves, or our lives are determined by our own needs, wants.. it gets a very small world.. and it's really not a storied world.. so story tellers have always been the people in our society that have brought us into the world that is larger than us.. and there's a past, there's a future.. we've always told stories."

"Every time a story is well told, the Gospel is told." -Eugene Peterson

I don't want to be a throw away line.