Never under estimate the power of a good story. This statement was proved true this past week as five men clung to only four life jackets after their sailboat capsized in the Gulf of Mexico. Floating in the water for over 26 hours the four Texas A&M students and one of the boat’s safety officers also held to a cardinal rule of water safety…stick together. I think it is probably also a cardinal rule for most of life. As they floated there through daylight and darkness, with fish nibbling their skin and clothing, the students were held in the moment by the power of their sailing mate’s stories, their ability to not panic and something no doubt their mothers taught them…..to share. They tied themselves together and shared the jackets amongst them.

Steve Conway, the eldest and a retired Coast Guard commander was the storyteller. When morale began to wane or fear started to set in, he would crank out another story binding this group of treading survivors together through word and imagination, allowing them to come back to the moment, stoking their will to live. It worked and they were rescued  by a helicopter crew who noticed the small flash light that was attached to Conway’s life jacket. Their other safety officer, the one who had pushed the students to safety along with their flotation devices, did not survive.

I wonder how many times a good story has saved a life? How many times in a situation of grave danger has a parent held a child and soothed their fears with a fairy tale? I think of the wonderful ways in which the father in the film Life Is Beautiful kept his young son from knowing the horrors of the concentration camps by spinning amazing yarns. Or how many times has a soldier hiding in a foxhole, recounted a story of safer, more ordinary times, keeping himself and those around him from the fear of war? I remember the only time one of children had to have stitches and standing near him, holding his hand, taking him on a journey of imagination with stories of places he loved the most

Stories…and sticking together…….cardinal rules for living. I am deep in reading the scriptures of Exodus which are filled with dramatic stories of seas parting, staffs that turn into snakes, horses and riders thrown into the sea. Through all of these stories, Moses, that reluctant prophet, leads the people of Israel, helping them to stick together and make it to the land, and the life, they have been promised. Through it all they become a people, God’s people, and we continue to tell their story as we seek to make it our own.

In our families, in our communities, may we have the wisdom to tie ourselves together, to ignore the fish that might be nibbling at our skin, and the courage to stick together while we live out our ever-evolving story.

"In the next century
or the one beyond that
they say,
are valleys, pastures.
We can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light."
   ~Gary Snyder