I recently had a conversation with a colleague of mine about refugees coming to the United States. My colleague believes that we should be more cautious about who we let into the country.
At one point during the conversation, I said that I found meaning in the story of Jesus’ family’s experience as refugees during the time of his birth, and I thought that we should err on the side of inclusion and welcome as many people as possible who need a home.
Surprised, my colleague said, “you would base policy decisions on a STORY?!”
Knowing I have a degree in public policy, which emphasizes statistics and economics, my colleague assumed I would value numbers and “hard facts” more than “stories.”
I wasn’t able to articulate this clearly at the time, but I believe everyone makes decisions based on STORY. I do value research and numbers, but the purpose of numbers and “hard facts” is to help us understand the story of real people’s lives. All of the statistics we hear, media we consume, fiction we read, scripture we engage, and relationships we have with real people help us to form stories about how we think the world works and how we believe it should work.
A narrative about God becoming human as a refugee has been told again and again over centuries. The story contains meaning and truth and beauty. God knows what it means to be an outsider–to be vulnerable, at the mercy of forces beyond your control. And yes, that story inspires the kind of world I want to live in, including the public policies I believe should shape our lives together.