We don’t have to always look towards fiction for powerful stories. Our own history is full of them. Many of the best, and the worst, you may have never heard.
When we are taught history in schools, it is condensed into names, dates and places. Rarely do we get to know the people involved. The result is a distant, impersonal past that seems like it never happened, nor is it relevant to the present.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In Miracles and Massacres, Glenn Beck and others have pulled 12 stories from our past (though some not so long ago). Many are obscure, yet impact us to this day. Some show triumphs of our nation, and others its failures. Some of the failures have been hidden and remain unaddressed. All of these historical events provide valuable lessons for us in government, freedom and justice.
They also put faces to dry facts. When you tell a person’s story, it connects us to them. They are no longer a faded memory, an irrelevant soul. Not all of them are pretty with happy endings. Those are often the ones we shouldn’t forget. We all have a story. Some of those stories reach out from times forgotten begging to be heard.
And sometimes, we had best stop and listen.
Darrick Dean 