Our transcendant stories

I am still resonating with the idea of sharing our personal histories; the topic of my presentation to the Afton Historical Society last week. It was reinforced again today by an essay in the Chronicle. The writer had invited the performer Sting to read from his memoir at a writing workshop. There was the attendant hub-bub of the star arriving on campus, but then it came to reading from his book about his relationship with his father. The essayist wrote

it dawned on me that what was most powerful about the experience wasn't that Sting was famous, but that he had a story to tell that transcended his celebrity.

And my point is that our stories have the same ability: to transcend our obscurity.