麻豆约拍

There lying in my cabinet, in a corner dusted with cobwebs and secrets, is a little case made of faded green fabric.


Inside the case, waiting to come to life is an ogre who yearns to be golden, a humble mango seller who becomes a haughty princess, and a flying four poster bed.


These are just a few of the wondrous stories from the Storyteller magazines, a series that for a short while was all the rage back in the 80s. My brother and I would wait for what seemed like an eternity - but was in fact only two weeks - 聽for this little pack of magic to be posted through our letterbox.聽 Each magazine came with a cassette tape on the cover.聽 To this day I remember the joy I felt on hearing the 鈥榙ing鈥� on the tape to tell us to turn the page. 聽


These stories filled my little head with wonder and my little heart with butterflies, and even though I鈥檝e not turned the pages or played the cassettes for nearly 30 years, they鈥檝e always been part of my life journey.


They stirred my imagination and moved me through different worlds, even though I physically didn鈥檛 even move an inch.


Yet they took me beyond myself.


Faith does the same thing for me, it takes me beyond myself. It makes me think of greater things, or different worlds, of the beyondness of things.


The Quran shines brightly with a variety of stories - stories of noble prophets, of tribes from ancient times. They are stories that paint our human story - of courage in the face of fear, love that defies oppression, and faith that the storm will pass.


Humans without stories are like birds without wings, like a river without water, like a tree without bark. When you take stories away, you strip away the very essence of what it means to be human.


Stories are my oxygen. And it鈥檚 the Persian poet, Hafez, who really got this back in the 14th century, when he said: 鈥淏e kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the vast fields of light...And let it breathe.鈥�


I breathe stories, like I breathe my faith. It鈥檚 what keeps me going, what inspires me, what enriches my life. That is my story.