Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us

"Now more than ever, we need a teacher and a book such as this."--Anne Lamott, from the foreword

Stories tether us to what matters most: our families, our friends, our hearts, our planet, the wondrous mystery of life itself. Yet the stories we've been telling ourselves as a civilization are killing us: Fear is wisdom. Vanity is virtuous. Violence is peace. In the pages of Between the Listening and the Telling, storyteller, author, and activist Mark Yaconelli leads readers into an enchanting meditation on the power of storytelling in our individual and collective lives. We tell stories to remember who we are. We tell stories to savor the pleasure of living. Stories can be medicine, and they can transform entire communities.

Through his work with The Hearth nonprofit, Yaconelli has spent thousands of hours listening to people as they grieve loss, deepen friendships, strengthen families, shed light on injustice, and recover hope. In this moving exploration he shows us how individuals and communities can recover the practice of storytelling to address the despair of climate change, the trauma of school shootings, the tragedy of undocumented immigration, and the daily struggle for meaning.

Between the Listening and the Telling offers an alloy of story, commentary, and meditation. In an era of runaway loneliness, alienation, global crisis, and despair, sharing stories helps us make a home within ourselves and one another. This book offers a hope for unity that we had nearly given up on.

Mark Yaconelli is a speaker, facilitator, and author of five previous books. As founder and director of The Hearth nonprofit, Yaconelli has worked with the Lilly Endowment, Compassion International, and the Mexican American Cultural Center of Austin, among other organizations. Yaconelli holds an MA in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union and received a spiritual direction diploma from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Profiles of Yaconelli's work have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, as well as on BBC Radio 4, NPR, and ABC World News Tonight. He and his wife have three adult children and live in Ashland, Oregon.

Anne Lamott is the author of the bestsellers Traveling Mercies, Operating Instructions, and Bird by Bird, as well as six novels, including Crooked Little Heart and Rosie. Her column in Salon magazine was voted Best of the Web by Newsweek. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Lamott lives in northern California.