by Shaun Perkins
 Stories are keys that unlock life’s mystery, beauty and purpose. A bold statement, yes. And I believe it. Stories change our lives. They tell us about ourselves and shape our identity. Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle says, “The stories of your family and friends are your key to who you are and how you came to be.”
One of the things I love about Diana’s Grove is the emphasis on story. The story is a key – like a secret, like magic, like a lodestone. It is an ever-present symbol in our lives. Ishtar, the queen of the universe, had seven keys that unlocked the gates to the underworld. Athena carried keys to the city of Athens. Jesus said, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” Janus was in charge of locking and unlocking. In China, keys are given at birth to “lock” a child into happy circumstances. Ariadne gave Theseus the key – the string – that opened the lock of the Minotaur’s maze.
Stories are keys. Tim Tingle’s award-winning story “Crossing Bok Chitto” tells of 19th-century slaves living on one side of the Bok Chitto, a Mississippi river, and Choctaws living on the other. Between them was a “stone path just beneath the surface of the river.” This “key” was used by the Choctaws to help the slaves escape to freedom on the other side of the water.
Tingle is one of the nation’s most sought-after storytellers. I have heard him tell this story, and others, many times – and every time I am entranced by his ability to weave a tale that takes the audience to a place we couldn’t have imagined. I have always felt that his stories are somewhat like Garrison Keillor’s in the way they take us on a journey into a surprise that we didn’t see coming but that was, in retrospect, the whole reason we allowed ourselves to take the ride in the first place.
In a recent interview, I asked Tingle to pick one story that changed his life and tell us about it. He chose “Crossing Bok Chitto.” He said that, until 2005 when he went on a book tour, he had “lulled along, as most Americans do, in the belief that our nation's victory over racist attitudes was a victory that set us apart as a people. I was stunned to discover otherwise. My eyes were opened and I saw a people brimming with judgment based solely on race.”
Tingle’s story about Bok Chitto highlights the power people have over prejudice – the ability we have to end injustice if we are willing to act from our own integrity. Tingle described a memory of when he was seven, “drinking from a ‘Colored Only’ water fountain in a downtown Houston department store. My mother dragged me out of the store and was visibly upset.
“The next morning at breakfast it was obvious to all, my four brothers and sisters, that she had stayed up most of the night crying. ‘Never again,’ she announced, ‘Never again will we judge people by the color of their skin.’ She walked around the table and kissed me and asked me to forgive her.”
******************************************************************************************** Discover the Power of Storytelling in 2009! | Tingle’s mother, in essence, rewrote the story of her family’s life. Tingle said, “My mother was raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in an all-white neighborhood, as they all were in those days. She told of things her brothers had done and said to ‘colored people’, as she called them. 
“I will never forget what she then said,” Tingle reminisced about the family conversation on racism after the incident in the department store, “and though I could not possibly understand her at the time, I still remember her words. ‘We will all, at one time or another, suffer for making this choice. And when we do, remember this conversation, and know that you are doing the right thing.’"
Of the story of Bok Chitto, Tingle said, “In the telling and the twice-writing of the story (first as a short story included in Walking the Choctaw Road and second as a children's illustrated book) over a twelve-year period, I have re-examined my attitudes and how they were shaped by experiences I witnessed, even as a child. When Walking won the Oklahoma Reads Book Award in 2005, I was sent on a tour of Oklahoma communities, a five-month tour covering over one hundred towns and cities of every size. . . I spent many long hours on the road thinking about things I saw, and asked myself why I felt as I did and why basically good-hearted people so casually insulted complete strangers, publicly and without regret.
“Since the writing of ‘Crossing Bok Chitto,’ I am seeing through newly-opened eyes. I identify with those, like Schindler in the film Schindler’s List, who brave public scorn and risk so much in reaching across the boundaries that separate us.”
Stories, as I mentioned at the beginning, unlock life’s mystery, beauty and purpose. They do so by reminding us how important it is to connect to one another in meaningful ways. And that also requires a connection to ourselves. Stories can help us to be self-analytical. Storytellers, in particular, learn to be so – otherwise, how can they sincerely tell a story? How can we sincerely and with passion and inspiration move others with our words if we aren’t willing to examine the place those words come from?
Tingle remembered “delivering a keynote speech in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where I heard a new term. ‘Purism.’” He heard someone explain, "It means you aren't prejudiced, you just prefer our race to remain pure.
“I believe at the depths of my heart that the most difficult challenge we face is overcoming the attitudes of our founding fathers regarding race. ‘All men are created equal’ never meant ‘all’ men – not Indian people and certainly not African-Americans.”
So what is at the heart of listening to and learning from stories? “We need to first recognize the fallacy of our attitudes and work to overcome them,” says Tingle.
Our errors in reasoning that deliver us to our prejudices must be unlocked if we want to live with integrity, in community, with freedom and communication. Stories are the key that can open the lock. The world needs tellers, and the world needs listeners. Stories exist in the space between.
To learn more about Tim Tingle and his books, and to find out about his scheduled appearances, visit choctawstoryteller.com.
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Stories are Keys: An Interview with Tim Tingle |