Bringing History to Life

In toastmasters, I am in the storytelling manual. The last speech I gave was about the "moral" of the story and I went with a Jesus theme. I was clipping along with my favorite interpretation of the loaves and fishes story, when I was describing what it must have been like for Jesus to be speaking to multitudes. I mean how big is a multitude. Surely Jesus was bigger than Billy Graham and we know that guy can pack them in. But there were no microphones. That would reduce the audience size right there. But it was over many days, so he probably went from small group to small group, etc. Long story short (ha ha), one of the gals in the club told me afterwards that she'd never thought of Jesus as an accomplished public speaker.

I love getting into the details of what it must have been like in history. So the next speech I'm going to give it about bringing history to life. I was going to tell the story of the star spangled banner--very cool story. But NPR wakes me up on Saturday morning to a book review about a new book on FDR. What effect did being crippled with polio have on the politician FDR. The auther said in those days it would never even occur to anyone in Washington to come to the aid of New Orleans after the hurricane. Now it would never even occur to the most conservative person in Washington that we shouldn't. The author talked about how it must have made FDR feel to suddenly be judged by his handicape and how he probably looked at race differently because of it. Wow, I want to read that book. I've spent a lot of time on FDR, but I never made that leap to really put his life into that kind of perspective. I knew the new deal was revolutionary, but I just thought he was a really great guy. I didn't think about the dynamics in his life that brought him there.

They let me tell the 20 minute Cinderella story, but I better not get close to that line again. I think I'll stick with the story of the star spangled banner. I only remember part of it anyway.