As children, I'm sure there’s nothing we liked better than to be told a bedtime story. Most parents still carry on this tradition by reading story books to their own children.

One of my own favourite story tellers is Hans Christian Anderson, who was born in April 1805, the son of a shoemaker who lived with his parents on Odense, in Denmark. When he was 14 years old, his father decided to sell up and move his shoemaking business to Copenhagen. In 1829 at the age of 24 years, he began his writing career by writing short plays, novels, and travel stories, but these stories were little known outside of Scandinavia. Then in 1835 Hans published his very first fairy tale and over the period of the next forty years, until his death in 1875 aged 70 years he had managed to have 168 of his fairy stories published. Hans never married and told friends that he would have found a wife too distracting, as he liked to devote all of his time to his writing.

Perhaps because he never married, he managed to remain a very happy man, because when he got round to writing his autobiography, he gave it the title of “The fairy tale of my life.” The role of Hans Christian Anderson was brilliantly portrayed by Danny Kaye in the 1962 film of the same name. Who will forget the song “Wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen,” and stories of the “Ugly duckling” and “Thumbelina,” all set to music?

But let us not forget that other brilliant story teller, a man named Jesus Christ. He didn't get any of his works published in his lifetime, but liked nothing better than to gather a crowd around him and teach them about the word of his father. He often used parables or little stories to emphasize the point he was making and his disciples were often puzzled by some of the parables he used when teaching them, as sometimes we are as well.

“God will make his purpose clear to you, in the meantime, wait in silence”
“Suddenly, as if out of the sky, you understand and everything seems to lighten up and make sense.
It is in these moments that you realise all your thoughtfulness was not lost, but was the seed of harmony.”