Our Circle Friday was on the first healing story in the Gospel of Mark (unless you count the preceding story of casting out an unclean spirit as a healing story, which one of our Circle members pointed out). One of our activities to learn it was to identify its story characteristics: setting, characters, things, plot, verbal threads. We call it “narrative analysis.”

Then everybody took a part and we acted it out. Each woman picked a scarf or shawl for her particular character, which they really enjoyed. One woman said, “We don’t have much color here, so this is very nice.”

Afterwards, as usual, all were invited to tell the story to the group–straight storytelling style. And, what is not usual, every woman took a turn and told it. Each in her own style, but each very close to Mark’s version with most of the details. The last one had them all. It was delightful.