Two Bible Story Jams up this week. The first follows the Narrative Lectionary with a reading about Jesus healing the centurion’s slave (Luke 7:1-17) and uses some of the original folks from our first BSJ event in early December. The second is brought to you by some of the confirmation students at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. They’re talking about a story we sometimes hear in Lent, of when Jesus heals a “sinful” woman while dining with a Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). Listen as the kids imagine the reaction of Jesus and others as she bathes Jesus’ feet with tears and washes them with her hair. Okay, listen to the kids as...

Stories are powerful. The stories we tell each other, the stories we create to help us make sense of our lives, the stories we hear or read from others. Stories are powerful because, I believe, we are narrative beings – we make sense of and share our lives through the concrete plots and characters of stories. Even though the scenes of most stories we tell or hear are not exactly the same as events in our life, the are like elements of our life, and that similarity connects us not only to the story in question but to each other. Stories are powerful. Which is probably why film is such an incredible medium. It allows artists to take a story...

I found this recent video produced by Disney interesting, even encouraging. It invites us – and particularly our daughters – to redefine what we mean by the term “princess.” Rather than have our daughters – and, for that matter, our sons as well! – see the ideal girl as a damsel in distress waiting for someone to rescue her, Disney invites them to imagine princesses as real girls, as strong girls, as, quite frankly, real strong girls. There’s an irony here, of course, as few corporations or story-tellers have done more to promote – or profit by – the traditional image of the princess than Disney. Yet in recent movies like...