Importance of telling stories

At my individual service site, St. Patrick’s Parish, there is a story that needs to be told about the people who attend the weekly suppers. The story would refer to the fact that the economic crisis has affected many Dubuque citizens, more than people realize. The weekly suppers at St. Pat’s are full with the same attendees every week, and additionally, there are free suppers offered every night of the week in Dubuque; I am guessing that the majority of the people at St. Pat’s also attend the suppers on the other nights in Dubuque. Even though Dubuque has had a prosperous year, including new business growth and being named an “All-American City”, the increasing unemployment rates are definitely affecting Dubuque as well. Before starting the service at St. Pat’s, I did not realize how many people need financial help in Dubuque, but after two months helping with the suppers, I now know many people who are struggling financially in Dubuque. As a result, I think that the story about the people at St. Patrick’s should just be about the struggles that some people are experiencing in Dubuque, and that they need our help if we can help them out in any way.

The value of this story about the attendees of St. Pat’s would be to increase the awareness of fellow Dubuque citizens. I’m guessing there are a lot of Dubuque citizens who do not realize that there are many people living in Dubuque who need our help and generosity. If they were made more aware of the situation, they would be more likely to donate their time or money to help out with charities and functions like the suppers at St. Pat’s. This is probably the situation around the whole country. Many U.S. citizens are unaffected by the current economic crisis, and they do not realize how badly some people need our help. If we could increase their awareness by telling this story, it would result in our country being more likely to help out those in need.

Nussbaum agrees with me on the value of telling these stories about people we don’t understand. In her book, Cultivating Humanity, she relates the stories that need to be told to many social groups who are misunderstood, including the lower class and unemployed that I referred to. Her underlying message is to increase the awareness of people not in their situation. Nussbaum stresses the value of compassion in the stories because if the readers are compassionate and realize that they could very easily be in that same situation as that person, they would not be as ignorant towards them. Obviously, it is difficult to involve compassion when reading a story about a person of a different gender or race because we cannot imagine ourselves in that situation, and that is the problem involving ignorance of other classes of people. But, I still believe that if you can increase the awareness of the people not in the situation, they will still be more likely to help them out if they can. Even if we cannot imagine ourselves in the situation, we can still emotionally feel for them, and that compassion would result in better understanding of the people in need.