We will hear new member, Sylvia Dickey Smith, speak about the power of story this Sunday at 10:30am.
Who doesn’t love a good story? After all, it adds full-spectrum color to an otherwise black and white world. But we could survive without story, right? Wrong. As it turns out, opposable thumbs had less to do with human evolution than did storytelling. After all, those thumbs simply helped us hang on, while storytelling told us what we needed to hang onto.
Through story, we can imagine what might happen in the future, and develop ways to prepare for it. No other species does this. Story also creates a civilization and holds it together. It connects us to our past and inspires us for the future.
However, it goes well beyond that. Modern-day science reveals that a human’s brain is hard-wired to act in response to story. A story told well catchers our attention and alerts us to listen. Story also heals, inspires, motivates and renews our sense of self.
State and national awarding winning author, Sylvia Dickey Smith was born in Orange, Texas, and grew up in a colorful Scots-Irish family living in the midst of a Cajun culture.
When 34, her curiosity about the world took on a whole new dimension when she moved to the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad & Tobago. Awed by the differences in customs and cultures, particularly as they related to West Indian women, set her on a journey of study and self-discovery.
Back in the U.S. at 40, she started college and didn’t stop until she achieved a B.A. in sociology with a concentration in women’s studies and a master’s in counseling. For the next twenty years she worked in the field of human services and for a couple of those years, taught as an adjunct professor.
Her writing career didn’t begin until after she retired. An advocate for women, her writing features those who recreate themselves into the people they want to be, strong women who take charge of their lives and get things done. (If you’ve met Sidra Smart or Bea Meade, you know what she means.) The stories dwell on the wondrous twists and turns of human behavior rooted in her background as a counselor.
Her latest novel takes a big departure in voice. The Swamp Whisperer is a humorous yet serious tale of balance and imbalance through the eyes of a nosy old swamp woman who stumbles upon a plot to use ancestors of a cannibalistic Native American tribe to locate a long-abandoned silver mine, by whatever means necessary.
The Religious Exploration group will meet at 9:00am to continue the discussion of “Situation Ethics”, followed by refreshments at 10:00am. We hope that you will join us.