A Long Line of Tellers

Tomorrow night is Tellebration! On this one evening, in fifteen countries, on six continents, all around the world, people gather in towns and cities, cafes and auditoriums, to hear stories. They gather to be comforted and cajoled, entertained and entranced. They gather to feel the human beat, to know that this life has been much the same in emotional content since the beginning of time. They gather simply to be together, just as people have done on dark evenings for thousands of years. We are joined together. Across continents and time zones, across boundaries and barriers, we share the instinctive knowledge of the truth, the connection, of stories.

On this night, even more certainly than at any other performances, we tellers stand in front of our listening audiences and know we are not alone. We are honored to stand in a long line of tellers. On one side are all those who have come before us. And on the other side are the tellers yet to come. We have joined with one another, commited to breathing life into the words; passing the stories on, one to the next, to the next, so they won't be forgotten.

I dream. My life goal is to share stories on all seven continents. I dream that one year, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I will be standing before a group of listeners in Antarctica. I dream that to my left and right are all the tellers that have been and all the tellers that will come. I dream that, if only for that one evening, stories will cover the globe.