Story Night – ERINN OXFORD

Posted on March 18, 2025 by erinnoxford

Expanding the Movement: Story Night Montreal

Since the first Story Night in the fall of 2022, a lot has been happening. Existing relationships have been deepened while new ones have been formed. We have gathered on multiple occasions as people who are motivated by faith to address poverty and injustice. We come from various contexts and are invited to hold a space centred around storytelling where we can communicate across difference. In our polarized world, choosing to sit in the messy middle together can be all too rare, and so this is proving to be a special experience. Part of the emerging vision is for story gatherings to happen in various places across the country, while a large Story Day will continue to take place in Toronto each fall.

I am excited to share that my friend Jenna Smith, together with her colleagues at Christian Direction, have decided to host a French language Story Night on April 10^th. Here, in her own words, is what inspired Jenna to pursue gathering people in Montreal. I can’t wait to be there, cheering her and the group of storytellers on. If this prompts you to consider doing a Story Night in your own place, please reach out to have a chat.

From Jenna:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I found myself back in front line work, responding to a food security crisis in our downtown neighbourhood. I was also on the board of an emergency shelter for our unhoused neighbours and was called upon on several occasions to deal with dire situations: covid outbreaks, impossible-to-follow-directives from public health and tragically the death of one our members because our building was obligated to close its doors from midnight to 6 am.

On a phone call with a colleague, I told her my body was aching from dragging 20kg bags of rice into our food bank and my mind was frazzled from, well, everything. She empathized. “We’re tired,” she said, “we are all going to need rest at the end of this. And, Jenna, we are all going to need to process what is happening to us, and talk, and grieve.”

I am not sure we, in our communities, in our churches or in society, have implemented my colleague’s vision of collective respite and debrief. Most days, it feels like we ramped up in all the ways I wish we hadn’t: more anxiety, more anger, more pressures for productivity. More homelessness in my city. More pain in my work.

At Story Day in October 2024 I found a space and a people who were embodying what I knew to be true for those of us in caregiving work. A movement of people working to eradicate poverty and injustice according to the person of Jesus and acknowledging, through story, all the joy, all the pain and anger and all the complicated hope that comes with this calling. I texted my colleagues, “this is the best Work and Faith event I have ever been to. These people all work a little like us. And they slug through, in faith.”

Our team in Montreal humbly accepted the invitation to run our own French language, Story Night; as we reflect on lamentation and hope, maybe we also will celebrate the slugging through, in faith.

To learn more: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/christian-direction-inc/events/story-night/

Depuis la première soirée de contes à l’automne 2022, beaucoup de choses se sont passées. Les relations existantes se sont approfondies tandis que de nouvelles se sont formées. Nous nous sommes réunis à plusieurs reprises en tant que personnes motivées par la foi pour lutter contre la pauvreté et l’injustice. Nous venons de divers horizons et sommes invités à créer un espace centré sur le récit où nous pouvons communiquer au-delà de nos différences. Dans notre monde polarisé, il est trop rare de choisir de s’asseoir ensemble dans le désordre du milieu, et cela s’avère donc être une expérience particulière. Une partie de la vision émergente consiste à organiser des rassemblements Story dans divers endroits du pays, tandis qu’une grande journée Story continuera à avoir lieu à Toronto chaque automne.

Je suis ravie de vous annoncer que mon amie Jenna Smith, en collaboration avec ses collègues de Christian Direction, a décidé d’organiser une soirée Story en français le 10^avril. Voici, dans ses propres mots, ce qui a inspiré Jenna à rassembler des gens à Montréal. J’ai hâte d’être là pour l’encourager, elle et le groupe de conteurs. Si cela vous incite à envisager d’organiser une soirée Story chez vous, n’hésitez pas à me contacter pour en discuter.

De Jenna :

Pendant la pandémie de Covid-19, je me suis retrouvée en première ligne pour répondre à une crise de sécurité alimentaire dans notre quartier du centre-ville. Je siégeais également au conseil d’administration d’un refuge d’urgence pour nos voisins sans abri et j’ai été appelée à plusieurs reprises pour faire face à des situations désastreuses : des épidémies de Covid, des directives de santé publique impossibles à suivre et, tragiquement, le décès d’un de nos membres parce que notre bâtiment a été contraint de fermer ses portes de minuit à 6 heures du matin.

Lors d’un appel téléphonique avec une collègue, je lui ai dit que mon corps me faisait mal à force de traîner des sacs de riz de 20 kg jusqu’à notre banque alimentaire et que mon esprit était épuisé par, eh bien, tout. Elle a fait preuve d’empathie. « Nous sommes fatigués », a-t-elle dit, « nous allons tous avoir besoin de repos à la fin de tout ça. Et, Jenna, nous allons tous avoir besoin de digérer ce qui nous arrive, de parler et de faire notre deuil. »

Je ne suis pas sûre que nous, dans nos communautés, nos églises ou la société, ayons mis en œuvre la vision de mon collègue d’un répit et d’un débriefing collectifs. La plupart du temps, j’ai l’impression que nous avons intensifié les choses d’une manière que je regrette : plus d’anxiété, plus de colère, plus de pression pour la productivité. Plus de sans-abris dans ma ville. Plus de souffrance dans mon travail.

Lors de la Journée de la narration en octobre 2024, j’ai trouvé un espace et des personnes qui incarnaient ce que je savais être vrai pour ceux d’entre nous qui travaillent dans le domaine de l’aide sociale. Un mouvement de personnes qui travaillent à éradiquer la pauvreté et l’injustice selon la personne de Jésus et qui reconnaissent, à travers l’histoire, toute la joie, toute la douleur et la colère et tout l’espoir compliqué qui accompagne cet appel. J’ai envoyé un texto à mes collègues : « C’est le meilleur événement Work and Faith auquel j’ai jamais participé. Ces personnes travaillent toutes un peu comme nous. Et elles se débattent, dans la foi. »

Notre équipe de Montréal a humblement accepté l’invitation à organiser notre propre soirée Story Night en français ; alors que nous réfléchissons sur la lamentation et l’espoir, peut-être célébrerons-nous aussi le fait de se débattre, dans la foi.

Posted on October 19, 2023 by erinnoxford · 1 Comment

Story Day: Hospitality, Holding Space and Hope for More

It was close to the beginning of this year when conversations about having a gathering similar to last fall’s Story Night started. For those who don’t know, Story Night was developed in response to feedback from people who had previously been involved in Street Level, a network of poverty front-line workers. It became clear that people wanted to gather, and how it was important to broaden the scope of who might attend- there are so many people who are working toward justice, just not as their paid vocation. It felt right that Story Night was about naming our collective grief and in doing so, being reminded that we are not alone. It now felt like time for something that might encourage and equip us to keep going. I couldn’t shake the idea that hospitality might be the theme.

Story Day: Hospitality took place last Wednesday. On the evening before, I kept thinking about how surreal it felt that the day was finally here. Now it feels surreal that it is over. It has been months of planning and connecting with people around tables and on zoom. The emails have been many about venues and food and all the nitty gritty details. It really has been all a labour of love.

My own processing of the event is just starting to happen so it almost seems strange to be writing about it, though I imagine this might help me dislodge my thoughts. My therapist was helpful the other day when she asked, “what are some of your takeaways?”

We need each other. We need to connect. An event like Story Day is a wonderful vehicle to gather people, and the hope is that the connection will move beyond a single day. I have been so encouraged to hear how many people have already made plans to meet since last Wednesday.

It has been good to sit with the framework that Jason McKinney offered at the beginning of the day: Hospitality/Conviviality/Sacramentality- a threshold practice, an interior practice, a spiritual practice. A word of welcome to the stranger initiates the journey from strangeness to companionship; bread broken and shared with intention and gratitude consecrates that journey and all that comes after it.

Similarly, it has been helpful to think about what Carl Amouzou described as the move from Benevolent community to Beloved community, We are invited to become a PART of community, and not simply administrators of it. As evidenced throughout the sharing of stories, reciprocity is a foundational part of hospitality. We all need to both give and receive.

Both Story Night and Day have been an invitation to collectively sit in the messy middle of diverse ideas and experiences. I want more of it. In our increasingly polarized world, I long for opportunities where we can hold space for one another across difference. It isn’t easy, but as my friend Heather Beamish recently said, it is also where the juicy stuff happens.

Wednesday was a special day, one woven together with music, art, stories, reflections, food, and conversation. The feedback so far is saying the same. It seems there is a growing momentum to this movement, one that is for us to co-create together. Here’s to more connecting, more gathering, more mutual care, more collective grappling with ideas, more diversity, and as one friend put it, more joy as resistance.

Posted on November 7, 2022 by erinnoxford

The Heavy Fog

I was headed east when I noticed what at first appeared to be smoke from a fire. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized it was actually fog rolling in from the lake. Soon, no matter what direction I looked was a haze that made the skyline of Toronto eerily absent. The fog stayed for days.

It was during this time that an unmistakable intense turn happened in the lives of many people I love. In general terms, there was a collective “we’re hitting the end of ourselves”. As I sat on the ground with someone in distress, I found myself with an uncharacteristic empty feeling in my gut. Neither of us could imagine a way forward. With tears stinging my eyes but not even falling, I joined in the lament for broken systems, injustice, trauma, lack of housing, misdiagnosis and overmedicating, estrangements, and the all too constant accumulation of grief.

Just a week prior to this was Story Night, an event that I have yet to really process. When asked about it, I have consistently said that as a group we sat in the risky and messy middle of a lot of things, rare in this increasingly polarized world. At the beginning of the night I suggested that we didn’t need to rush through the lament in order to get to hope. We get to (need to) sit in the disorientation of pain, or as Walter Brueggemann describes, that place where we have, “sunk into the pit”.

There are times when I sit in that pit and the weather does not match the mood, the sunshine taunting me to get up and get on with it. In a strange way, I think the dense fog that just wouldn’t lift was illustrating for me the necessity of being present to the grief. At times it was uncomfortable and very hard to see. All the familiar landmarks became unrecognizable. I had more than a few white-knuckled drives. It even felt claustrophobic.

You can see the city again. The mist has retreated. Are all the lament-worthy things gone too? Unfortunately, no. I did however take notice of a few things. One person had a conversation with someone who had been ignoring them for years. Another has avoided eviction. Yet another had a bit of respite out of the city. I am also hearing from people who attended Story Night and were deeply impacted. It was an example of, as more than one person put it, mutual care. Living into the tension of lament and hope is hard work. I am more convinced than ever that whether we are sitting on the ground with someone or gathered in a room with a lot of people, to navigate both the fog and the sun we need each other.