The summer Circle of the Word (COW) series of  “Founding Mothers” is now over and I’m taking a 6-week break to accommodate various travels and conflicting events. The first trip is to Chevy Chase, MD just outside Washington D.C., where I arrived today. I’ll be presenting COW at two back-to-back annual events of the Network of Biblical Storytellers (NBS).

The NBS Seminar began today and goes through Tuesday. This is a meeting of about 25 storytelling scholars and scholarly storytellers who explore the impact of selected stories told aloud to an audience, and share the work they are doing related to performance criticism. 

The dual theme of the seminar this year is fear-not stories and stories of women. The mini-epic we are telling is from Genesis, and includes the stories I chose for the “Founding Mothers” series. In fact, that’s why I chose those stories. I will be presenting a summary of my doctoral dissertation on spiritual empowerment through biblical storytelling with incarcerated men and women, and use the story “God Saves Hagar” (Gen. 21:8-14) to demonstrate a few COW activities.

As soon as the Seminar is over the 4-day NBS Festival Gathering begins. On Friday I’ll be presenting a workshop on Circle of the Word. I’ll attempt to both describe the program and model it, as well as to suggest ideas for getting started in detention ministry. Not sure I can do all that in 90 minutes, but I’ll give it my best shot.