Storyteller & Humanitarian: Laura Simms

Laura Simms is a very awarded and internationally recognized storyteller.  She has been telling stories for over forty years.  She believes that the arts have bonded communities together which is why over her lifetime she has been trying to advocate the power of storytelling.

One of the interesting points she brought up was that bullying is actually a form of storytelling.  We believe in one thing and act upon it without taking responsibility for what we said.  This is something that stuck with me because I have never thought about how bullying is made up of rumors and hurtful things that the bully rarely takes responsibility for saying.

Laura also discussed how someone once told her after listening to one of her stories, how they thought the story was nice, but no one in the world was kind enough to actually be the person in the story.  She was shocked and felt lousy because she truly enjoyed the story.  I was shocked that someone at a convocation would say this to her because it was a great story.  It just proved the point that storytelling has lost its flare.

However, Laura has a friend who was a victim of war from Africa who told her a story that proved the man from the convocation wrong.  There is someone who is that kind in our world.  Her young friend, whose name I am not able to spell, told her how the boy who had cut off his arms and killed his parents asked him for forgiveness.  Then Laura's friend had the opportunity, took it, and forgave the boy who cut off his arms and killed his parents.  I could never imagine what Laura's young friend had gone through during his life and I was absolutely inspired after hearing the story of how he forgave the person who took so much from him.

Overall, this convocation was very eye-opening to understand how powerful the art of storytelling can be.  It is a very powerful tool to have when trying to engage a large group of people.  This made me realize how much I still love listening to someone telling me a good story.  I absolutely loved listening to Laura Simms' stories.