By Michael Leppert
The Indiana Citizen
March 12, 2025
I teach storytelling, though the official titles of the classes are things like presentations, writing or speech for business. But on the first day of school in all of my classes, I put a slide on the screen with this quote from the late Steve Jobs: “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” Then I ask my new students if they believe that or not.
Jason Isbell is one of America’s greatest storytellers, and yes, he’s on one of my first day of school slides too. His latest album, “Foxes in the Snow,” was released Friday morning, and in my opinion, it’s his best album yet. I was predisposed to loving this one because the production is stripped down to nothing but Isbell, his guitar and a microphone. I first became a fan because of the words he writes. Then I noticed he is an incredible guitarist. I love this album most because that’s all we get. The best songs are always at their best in their simplest of forms.
On “Foxes,” Isbell tells the Wall Street Journal: “There’s a lot of heavy stuff on the record, and it felt private…I didn’t really want anybody else in the room for that.” Listeners get to join him there.
I’m not sure this stuff is any heavier than usual, but I get why it’s heavier for him. His recent divorce, his new love interest and his new part time residency in New York City are detailed throughout the song list. What seems to make it heavy is that this is a new world for Isbell, filled with disappointment and excitement, but most of all, newness.
That’s what I hear in all of these songs, particularly in “Open and Close,” in which he sums up the description of his new life with the declaration, “it’s time to be brave.”
What I am trying to get my students to achieve with their audiences is connection. That sounds like a vague, generic term when they hear me use it the first time. But as should be expected, there is a scientific term for it, known as “neural coupling.” This is “the literal synchrony in brain states between speaker and listener. When you’re the speaker, your goal is to replicate the same pattern of brain activity that you have in your head inside the head of your conversational partner,” as described by Dr. Matt Johnson in Psychology Today.
I don’t feel the specific pain of Isbell’s divorce or the specific excitement of his new love, but I mirror many of the components of his emotional state that come from facing a new world. Specifically, the pressure that is felt from the need to be brave.
This is why storytelling is so powerful.
Amanda Zurawski never had plans to describe a profoundly personal slice of her life on a big stage. Yet she was at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington on Friday for a screening of “Zurawski v Texas,” the 2024 documentary about her battle for women’s reproductive rights.
The film’s synopsis captures what has become a familiar modern story: “Women denied abortions under Texas’ ambiguous and unforgiving abortion bans band together with a fearless attorney to sue Texas.” The fearlessness is the thing that connected with me.
Zurawski is a familiar face in the battle for human rights that was instigated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. I was familiar with her story before I met her on Friday. I didn’t know she grew up in Fort Wayne and graduated from IU, but that makes perfect sense. She has always stricken me as representative of anyone in America forced to deal with a barbaric policy that on its best day lacks consideration of the infinite possibilities that humanity brings.
Samantha Casiano joined Zurawski as a plaintiff, and her experience is prominently shared in the film. She was forced to carry a pregnancy to term, knowing her unborn child couldn’t survive. Her daughter, “Halo,” needlessly suffered for four hours after birth before her inevitable death occurred. Casiano didn’t have the means to simply travel to another jurisdiction for the obvious healthcare she needed to avoid the certain and horrific outcome.
Brave was all these women could be. The film walks us through a much longer list of emotions of course, but all I could see was their bravery.
The uncertainty of this moment in our social, cultural and political lives is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Americans don’t identify the need for courage in our daily lives as often as we likely soon will. This is the shared challenge addressed by the stories told by Isbell and Zurawski.
Stories are powerful. On Friday, both stories powerfully showed me that yes, it is definitely time to be brave.
Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com.The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
