On love and being given the Brother Blue and Ruth Hill award

Typically on Thursdays I post in response to the story quote of the week. This week won't be an exception, but it's in an unexpected and overwhelming context, so please bear with me.

I've written before, many times, about Brother Blue and his wife, Ruth Hill. They are my teachers, my friends, my spiritual parents. Brother Blue died in November, 2009 and I still miss him. I talk with Ruth every week and see her several times every month. I don't know who I would be without them.

The Brother Blue and Ruth Hill award was instituted by the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling in 2002 to "recognize extraordinary commitment and efforts to promote a broader understanding of the art of storytelling and the support of storytellers in the development of their art. It serves, as Brother Blue, has said, 'To honor those who give their lives to storytelling to change the world.'"

This year my partner, Kevin Brooks, and I were the recipients. I cannot tell you how honored and grateful we are. To be selected by our peers as being worthy of this award, and an award established in honor of a couple who have shaped both our lives, is humbling and overwhelming.

Which brings me to the story quote of the week.


A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
― Ben Okri


Brother Blue always said that if we knew each other's stories we couldn't point a gun at each other. If we understood how much we were alike on an individual basis by hearing each others stories, we couldn't kill each other. If we told from the middle of the middle of ourselves to the middle of the middle of our listeners, there would be no reason to fear.

We understand ourselves and our lives through the stories we tell and hear. They create the worlds we live in. We need to be mindful of what stories we tell because they are how we learn, understand, shape and share our worlds. A well-told story can build walls or bridges.

And that is why I do the work I do, whether on a stage, in the street, a boardroom or class. Stories connect us. They keep us healthy because we can reach beyond ourselves and find we are not alone. They make our hearts larger because they give us the gift of seeing the world through a new lens and the realization that this lens is not so different from our own. Standing on the stage this past weekend, as we accepted the Brother Blue and Ruth Hill award, all I could see was the potential of hundreds of beating hearts, expanding to hold all the stories they heard, flying off to make the world a bigger place.

(c)2012 Laura S. Packer