This is always a great way to start a story, says Thomas King. I just finished reading The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative which is from the 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. I had heard most of them on the radio in 2003, but I always wanted to read the whole thing. There is just something about Thomas King that always gets me going. Green Grass, Running Water changed the way I thought about stories and literature in general. Who knew magic realism existed? I didn’t. I love post modernism.

Well the Massey lectures aren’t any different. They really got me thinking. A couple of things actually. Including a semi frantic email to Tracy wondering why she never told me that I am not a poet. One of the things that really got me thinking was this:

The truth about stories is that that’s all we are… So here are our choices: a world in which creation is a solitary, individual act or a world in which creation is a shared activity; a world that begins in harmony and slides towards chaos or a wolrd that begins in chaos and moves towards harmony; a world marked by competition or a world determined by co-operation…

So am I such an ass to disregard this good advice and suggest that the stories contained within the matrix of Christianity and the complex of nationalism are responsible for the social, political, and economic problems we face?…Am I suggesting that, if we hope to create a truly civil society, we must first burn all the flags and kill all the gods, because in such a world we could no longer tolerate such weapons of mass destruction?

…What if the animals had decided on their own names? What if Adam and Eve had simply been admonished for their foolishness? I love you, God could have said, but I’m not happy with your behaviour. Let’s talk this over. Try to do better next time. What kind of world might we have created with that story? — The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, Thomas King

This is not an new idea to me. It is a different way of phrasing it. I know that King picks on Christianity a bit in this book. Rightfully so. The Judeo-Christian story sets up a definite hierarchy and we are, to this day, members of that same hierarchy. Believer or not. We are competition based. There is very little cooperation in us—aside from self-serving, which isn’t really cooperation. I am guilty. I am not pointing at you. Sure, I sponsor a kid in Rwanda and give to Amnesty International, but I also put that I sponsor those organizations on my resume.

In Christian terms, I have heard this debate not over the creation story per se, but over the idea of original sin. Different theologians have imagined what the world would look like had we started from original blessing, as opposed to original sin. How many centuries have gone by with the first thing we hear in this world is that we are flawed, guilty and cursed. Worse yet, cursed by knowledge. By the desire and curiosity we are born with. Cursed by a talking snake. So maybe this wasn’t the best story to start with.

The good thing about stories is that you can tell them again and in your own way. I like that idea. It means there is still hope. I want to end this with one more quote—You can have it if you want. John’s story, that is. Do with it what you will. I’d just as soon you forget it, or at least, not mention my name if you tell it to friends. Just don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.