{"id":1003,"date":"2016-05-04T18:47:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T11:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2024-01-31T18:48:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T11:48:29","slug":"story-telling-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/?p=1003","title":{"rendered":"Story telling in practice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For a week I had been teaching orality at a conference and whilst going home on the last night I passed a couple on the side of the road. Feeling convicted that I\u00a0should help them, I\u00a0stopped and then reversed back to them. Their motorcycle had broken down and they needed a ride. The young man was a 19 year old Shan from Myanmar who had been in Thailand for 10 years. I asked if the girl with him was his younger sister and he said, \u201cNo, this is my 16 year old wife of one month.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0They both worked on a coffee plantation outside of Chiangmai.\u00a0 I was able to tell this couple \u2018The Good Samaritan\u2019 story and was pleased when the young man answered my questions about why the two religious people walked by without helping. This couple\u00a0thanked us profusely when they left our car.<\/p>\n

The next day I caught a taxi in front of my condo.\u00a0 A tourist was sitting in the back and I sat up front with the driver. The first thing the driver asked me was, \u201cWhy did that foreigner in the back give 1000 baht to a stranger?\u201d as he had seen this transaction in his rear view mirror. When we dropped off the tourist and he paid the fare I said, \u201cThis driver is curious as to why you gave 1,000 baht to that Thai.\u201d\u00a0 The tourist simply said, \u201cHe needed it.\u201d\u00a0 This prompted a discussion with the driver about giving generously and freely to people who might not be that deserving.<\/p>\n

I chose then to tell the driver of when Jesus was having dinner in the house of Simon the Leper and a notorious woman anointed Jesus\u2019\u00a0feet.\u00a0 In that story Jesus uses an illustration of a creditor forgiving a large debt out of simple generosity. I asked the driver a few questions about the story and then compared it to the \u201cworks\u201d orientation of all world religions, including Buddhism.\u00a0 When we got to the airport I tried to give him a tip; at first he refused and in the end would only let me give him a smaller amount.\u00a0 I am praying he will read the tract I gave him and realize that his human works will never attain the righteousness that God requires and that the only way to experience true peace is by receiving the free gift of salvation through Jesus.<\/p>\n

Photo source: ptownsend@flickr.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a week I had been teaching orality at a conference and whilst going home on the last night I passed a couple on the side of the road. Feeling convicted that I\u00a0should help them, I\u00a0stopped and then reversed back … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}