Over the holidays, I received a loaf of homemade gluten-free bread as a gift. Taped to the bag was the note, “You are loved and appreciated.” I’m gonna hang onto the note to help me remember not just the tasty bread, but also the connection I have with the baker. But it means even more than that. The note suggests a story, with me as a character. A character who is loved and appreciated. It’s a story I want to live in.

Our theme this month, “living love through the practice of story,” is an opportunity to notice the stories we live in. We choose what kind of characters to be when we choose which narrators to believe. Through our actions, we change the storyline. And through our retellings, we influence the stories lived by those around us and those who will come after. As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to doing all this with respect, compassion, curiosity, and hope.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the phrase, “turtles all the way down.” The image draws on origin stories and cultural narratives of diverse peoples around the world, who envision the ground that supports our weight as the back of a turtle. So what (or who) supports the turtle? Another turtle, of course! The indigenous peoples who have given us this image understand that no matter how thorough we are in explaining things, there’s always another mystery below that. There are “stories all the way down.” Stories are living, breathing, beings with whom we can connect. They are sometimes clumsy, sometimes graceful; they change over time; they are particular; they are countless. While it might be true that “in the beginning, God created turtles,” this creation story is told by humans who have their own creative power, including the complex minds capable of imagining a creator God in their own image. While it might be totally made up that “in the beginning, God created turtles,” the story represents the deep truth of countless generations who have accepted that the origins of our universe can’t be explained in simple human terms. But we keep trying, layering language atop language, passing along what we’ve learned with the hope that those who come next will discover even more.

No story is ever 100% accurate, but our faith calls us to be 100% honest in our storytelling. Living love through the practice of story means staying humble. We never know the full story, so we must leave growing room for the characters whose deeds and misdeeds we recount. We must recognize ourselves as characters, too, and take the risk of disclosing our challenges, mistakes, and less-than-fun feelings. No one else can tell those parts of our story, but they must be heard if we want to be known. It is only by listening to each other’s stories, including the nitty-gritty details, that we begin to know our collective story, the story of us. Let’s practice telling it this month. And as we show up, let us find our own language to tell each person we encounter, including ourselves: you are loved and appreciated.