{"id":816,"date":"2010-08-31T01:28:41","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T06:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"Stories shape our lives. They carry the religion, the traditions, the culture, and the relationships that form us into who we are and what we believe. Sometimes we are able to articulate the stories of our lives well, while at other times we may be unawar"},"modified":"2013-08-17T22:45:39","modified_gmt":"2013-08-18T03:45:39","slug":"the-power-of-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/the-power-of-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stories shape our lives. They carry the religion, the traditions, the culture, and the relationships that form us into who we are and what we believe. Sometimes we are able to articulate the stories of our lives well, while at other times we may be unaware of the impact that certain stories have had on us. As you examine the way that you think and decide, it is important for you to know what stories have shaped you.<\/p>\n<p>In the following TED Talk from 2009, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie describes the true power of stories:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D9Ihs241zeg?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Reflect on the stories that have shaped your life, informed your thinking, and possibly impacted how you make decisions. Consider the following:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What are the primary stories of your life?<\/li>\n<li>How have they formed your identity? Your view of others? Your faith? Your politics? Your decision-making processes?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Sometimes we are unaware of the stories that have impacted us and informed our thinking. We make snap judgments at all levels\u2014about food, weather, people, and ideologies. But what is it that is shaping our thinking in these moments? In his popular book, <em>Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking<\/em>, Malcolm Gladwell uses a wide variety of stories to better help us understand ourselves and what is going on in our thought processes (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikisummaries.org\/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking\" target=\"_blank\">summary of book<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>One tool that is available for measuring your thinking and examining your decision making processes is an interesting set of exercises available at the following website.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/implicit.harvard.edu\/implicit\/demo\/\" target=\"_blank\">Project Implicit &#8211; Implicit Association Test<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Discussion Questions:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What did you learn about yourself and your thought processes through this exercise? Was anything particularly surprising to you?<\/li>\n<li>What connections do you make with what you learned in this exercise and stories that have shaped your life? How do you think these affect the decisions that you have made and are making?<\/li>\n<li>If you were to choose a biblical story with which you really connect, what would it be? Why did you choose it? Mediate on this story this week and see how it affects your thinking, your decision-making.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Join the Conversation<\/h3>\n<p>We welcome comments on this or other related topics on the main Spotlight page.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Return to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/spotlight-schedule\/decision-making\/\">Jeanene Reese&#8217;s Spotlight page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stories shape our lives. They carry the religion, the traditions, the culture, and the relationships that form us into who we are and what we believe. Sometimes we are able to articulate the stories of our lives well, while at other times we may be unaware of the impact that certain stories have had on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-816","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3T2tB-da","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2840,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/816\/revisions\/2840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}