Encircling the ceiling of Hendricks Chapel is the phrase ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’

This theme rang true Friday during the fourth annual Sojourner Storytelling Conference, ‘Memory and ReMemory,’ taking place at the chapel as part of the One World Celebration 2002 at Syracuse University.

The annual storytelling event lasted from 10 a.m. through the evening in the chapel sanctuary and the Noble Room. Guest storytellers took turns reading to the crowd of listeners.

University students, faculty members, elderly residents and young school children attended the readings of ‘ageless legends which move us towards understanding global communities,’ said Francis McMillan Parks, founder and organizer of the readings.

About 50 listeners were in attendance throughout the day.

During the morning events, Thom Davenport, a guitar player, vocalist and youth ministry pastor demonstrated his musical talents along with the storytellers. Rev. Frederick Lampe, a Lutheran Chaplain at Hendricks, read “Identity and Origins” from the Hebrew Scriptures. As a tribute to the memory of Simeon Popov, the SU student who was killed last month during an armed robbery, Seth Hiler, a senior at SU, read the Bulgarian folktale “Justice and Injustice.”

Storyteller Betsy Fuller read “A Slave in the Family,” which tells the story of Harriet Tubman.

The Students Offering Service and African-American programs at Hendricks Chapel, along with the English department, 2002 Syracuse Symposium, The College of Arts and Sciences, SU Continuing Education and other college academic and administrative divisions at SU and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry hosted the event.

Keynote speaker Sally Roesch Wagner, a writer, lecturer, feminist and historian, ended the day’s events with her speech ‘Memory and ReMemory.’ Wagner, who holds a doctorate in women’s studies, is also an author.

‘She shares with us an ageless tradition for teaching and learning for persons who listen and persons who tell stories,’ said Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel.

Wagner began her closing remarks to a shocked audience as she announced that her way of letting herself free was to publicly tell people that her father molested her as a child.

‘Think of the silences where the stories should be but aren’t. We should be telling these stories, but aren’t,’ said Wagner. ‘If one was to write my biography and not include that my father molested me, they would miss the most important thing about me.’

Stressing the importance of storytelling in everyone’s life as she fought back tears, Wagner told the audience, ‘There is the you that is the public persona and then there is the shadow of you that has no voice or opinion and hides your painful memories. If we don’t know these memories, then we don’t have a history and we don’t have stories. Because of this, we censor ourselves and each other.’

By being included in the One World Celebration, as well as the Celebration of Beauty put on by the college, the chapel was able to advertise to the student body more effectively than in past years.

‘The day stood for a chance to affirm every culture, language, religion and humanity in general,’ Parks said.

The participants in the fifth Sojourner Storytelling Conference will be announced next winter, Parks added.

‘The outcome of the event was successful. We wanted to have an impact on the students and faculty and I think we did,’ Parks said. ‘It’s our purpose as a chapel of all faiths to bring everyone together. We are all different and we know this. We don’t try to pretend that we are the same. We do, however, try to bring everyone together.

“We were able to do that today due to the universal act of storytelling.”

Published on February 10, 2002 at 12:00 pm