Narrative 4 believes that exchanging meaningful stories can engender deep empathy, not just a deeper appreciation of or care for each other on an interpersonal level, but changed behavior. Certainly I have felt a lot of that over the past year as we did story exchanges first in my Freshman Inquiry class at Portland State and then out into the broader community, including several classrooms. We witnessed empathetic leaps between parents and children, teachers and students, and people with very different political views and ethnic backgrounds.
In New Orleans we had the pleasure of meeting some one hundred Narrative 4 students, teachers, writers, musicians, board members, and staff from all over the world, from Israel to Mexico to South Africa to England, from famous writers like Colin McCann and Ishmael Beah to young empathy warriors who will one day be famous, like Uri and Babsie.
We split into five groups to explore the major themes of Narrative 4 in more detail. I was part of a group that traveled to the delta's edge to experience the land of the Houma Indians, which is rapidly sinking under the ocean. The impact of climate change, pollution, industrial methods of farming, energy extraction, and transportation together with several hundred years of colonialism were palpable. So was Houma grace and hospitality and hope.
Over the next year our group will be trying, from our various corners of the globe, to take their story deeper. We believe that stories can change the world.
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