The mind cannot retain what the seat cannot endure.
That’s one of those phrases preachers and professors learn, sometimes the hard way. Another is the value of a good story.
Nothing breaks up the monotony of facts, information, and instruction like a good yarn.
I’ve seen it over and over while teaching. Without some color, the listeners glaze over. Spouting stats and facts and chapter and verse might make you sound like an expert, but it has the cumulative effect of warm milk and a soft blanket to your audience’s noggin. Which is why one of the best tools in a speaker’s toolbox is story. Metaphor, allegory, image, anecdote, parable — these do something to your listener that makes the experience more tolerable, if not downright enjoyable. Phrases like
- Think of it as…
- It’s kind of like…
- It’s been described as…
- It reminds me of that old story about…
- You’ve heard that joke about…
- A famous writer once said…
- My grandmother used to say…
These things disencumber the brain.
Which is why I’m not surprised at these findings from brain researchers that Metaphors Make Brains Touchy Feely:
Scientists have disagreed for decades about how the brain processes metaphors, those figures of speech that liken one thing to another without using “like” or “as.” One camp claims that when we hear a metaphor—a friend tells us she’s had a rough day—we understand the expression only because we’ve heard it so many times. The brain learns that “rough” means both “abrasive” and “bad,” this camp says, and it toggles from one definition to the other. The other camp claims the brain calls on sensory experiences, such as what roughness feels like, to comprehend the metaphor. (emphasis mine)
In other words, metaphors that involved sensory experiences — warmth, chill, placidity, dizziness, nausea, slipperiness, etc., etc. — evoke something more than just an image. They call up the actual feeling. During these recent studies, scientists mapped the brain regions of subjects as they listened to “a torrent of textual metaphors.”
The language-processing parts of volunteers’ brains became active regardless of whether the volunteers listened to the literal sentences or the metaphors. But textural metaphors also activated the parietal operculum, a region of the brain involved in feeling different textures through touch. That part of the brain didn’t light up when listening to a literal sentence expressing the same meaning as the metaphor.
The result suggests the brain’s grasp of metaphors is grounded in perception. (emphasis mine)
This could explain why a congregant will perk up when I say, “You know what a burning tooth smells like? Or the sound of the drill on bone? Or when that pool of saliva gathers in the back of your throat while the dentist is hovering over you, oblivious of your impending gag?”
See?
Anyway, it supports a long-held theory of mine that fiction actually engages the mind and body in ways non-fiction can’t. Story does more than just allow us to escape, or make us laugh and cry. Stories actually take us somewhere — physically and emotionally — that facts cannot.
Which could also explain why Jesus told so many of them.
Hi Mike- this makes a lot of sense. I’m both right and left brained… Dunno. God has a sense of humor : ) I get bored listening to myself if I don’t throw in a few funny things. I can only imagine how it would be for a reader. Oh yeah, Algebra class. Yikes! Definite snoozer. It’s like the “show don’t tell” philosophy isn’t it? Art History was hard to sit through too, except when the Professor shared the rest of the story. One example is how Michelangelo handled a Bishop’s constant complaining.
I’ve noted that as well, without the study. 🙂 In the article on “Why I Write Fantasy as a Christian” I make the point that a well-told story can engage the reader on an emotional level that helps them to *experience* the truth in a way that a self-help type book cannot, by living vicariously through the characters. Many will say that fantasy is pure escapism, and thus not worthy of their time, but they would be very wrong on that point. All stories teach something, whether intended or not by the authors.
But my seminary training is coming to me here. Some of what you are referring to are similes, not metaphors. I’m assuming you wanted to keep it simple so as not to complicate the subject, (yeah, yeah, that’s right) but a simile is introduced by the terms of “is like” or “as” in “The kingdom of God is like…” Whereas a metaphor is not so much a comparison of characteristics as it is relationships and is stated using to be verbs, like “I am the Shepherd…” or “I am the gate…” At least that is how it was given to us in seminary Biblical interpretation class. For your point, though, either type works for what you’re talking about. It is taking the familiar experience or relationship and relating it to something the reader is unfamiliar with so they know exactly what you are talking about without having to describe every detail.
Actually, non-fiction can do this but rarely does. I just finished reading The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars. The author is one of the rare few who manages to immerse the reader into a non-fiction account by using the very techniques you are discussing.
I had, recently, asked the congregants of the church I went to in Valley Brook, OK, if they knew why Jesus told about the world and Heaven in parable. Some said it was because it was prophesied that He would, others didn’t know. I said, in response, that He was actively engaging us in storytelling. Then used a metaphor about how any overly factual-talkative professor was a good cure for insomnia, and how, if Jesus were like that kind of professor, no one would have given a crap that He was the Messiah, we would have gotten completely bored of His blabbing, and He knew that, that’s why He told us in story-fashion.
Could be one reason that when I drive in traffic I don’t mind having the news on. I can pay attention to the road and listen to information, but I can’t concentrate on road conditions and listen to a book on tape.