Book Review: Between the Listening and the Telling by Mark Yaconelli
I started the Bettering Communities Book Club in 2024 with the goal of creating stronger, intentional community with folks who love reading and learning. Our 2024 cohort consists of a dozen public leaders from around the U.S. We reviewed our second book of the year this month, Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us by Mark Yaconelli.
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Reactions to the Book:
We had a smaller group at our book club this month, so this may be our minority opinion, but none of us really loved this book. It was a short and easy read, but we didn’t feel that it had a lot of strong relevancy to work in local government. We noted that the book was a bit repetitive, and it felt as though the storyteller himself (Mark Yaconelli) may have taken some artistic liberties with storytelling his own life and scenarios he shared. We all agreed that we saw the role storytelling could play in healing a community after a traumatic event, but we didn’t see a lot of ways to apply it to work on a daily basis.
Quick Summary:
Author Yaconelli shares his perspective on and examples of storytelling helping communities to heal and honor one another. He provides examples in family settings, communities experiencing alienation, communities navigating terrible tragedy, and how powerful connections or experiences actually impact us from a sensory perspective. Yaconelli acknowledges our political divisiveness and the social disconnectedness that the COVID-19 pandemic created, and shares instances of how we can better empathize with people unlike us, or motivate others around change in a more compelling way than by sharing emotionless data. In summary, Yaconelli notes that “pandemics have forced human beings to break up with the past and imagine their world anew… going back to the basics of human interaction” and argues that storytelling (and listening!) are an important part of rebuilding human connection.
Local Government as an Arbiter and Mediator for Social Issues
Our group read this book through the lens of local government. Our first discussion theme for this book was around the role of local governments - and how this has evolved in recent decades to serve more of a quasi-counselor, arbiter, mediator, and solver of social issues role. This is not the mandate of local government per se, but as social interactions in communities decline, community members turn to their local government for help. The need to help residents in different ways has shifted the type of people that local governments hire and the type of training they must provide (communication skills, emotional intelligence and wellbeing.)
Who is the Best Audience to Capture Stories?
Our group discussed if local government being the host or facilitator to conversations was an effective strategy. We shared examples of how neighborhood association meetings can be more negative at times when City employees attend them, whereas conversations are more constructive when volunteers coordinate amongst themselves. We also discussed how local government can support community-building events and informal gatherings that are less structured and intimidating than a formal government association. Strong communities and social connectedness are public health indicators, but connectedness is on the decline as social institutions decline in prevalence (such as faith based institutions.)
Some of the other community building programs we discussed included:
Neighborhood level grants from local government to support community building activities
Leveraging National Night Out events to bring people out in the community
Aligning around different structures, such as established and active community groups
How Do We Foster Connectedness in Our Communities in the Digital Era?
We universally agreed that we are ALL on our devices too much these days. It’s resulted in our desensitization to “once in a lifetime” events, and perhaps desensitized to social issues that are increasing in our communities (such as substance use, family decay, homelessness.
We discussed how devices can be a tool for us to be a part of online communities, but they lack the same depth.
We noted that deeper connections aren’t fostered online - it seems to require a level of face-to-face time. We also noted that it requires more effort and intentionality to form in-person connections.
How do we use technology to pull people away from their devices?
How do we use storytelling as a way to make issues more tangible and relatable and foster empathy between people?
We also discussed the book “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, which talks about excessive screen time and children’s development.
Final thoughts and takeaways
We wonder if there are ways that local government can offer a “light touch” to inspire community connectedness in a positive direction.
We reflected on our own technology use and how we can be more mindful of fostering intentional connections and having non-technological hobbies.
