Sharing Stories

My 8-year-old started the Harry Potter series this summer and it is everything I can do NOT to tell her the endings! She's just finished book 2 and had made some correct predictions (that's my girl!) and was taken off guard by a few other surprises. Already she's carrying around Book 3, ready to start it as soon as her head clears.

I think what excites me the most about my daughter's reading is that we're now sharing stories. As a pastor, much of my life is spent telling and retelling biblical stories in ways in which people can not only hear them but also participate in them. It's the shared stories that define us and that define our relationships. When stories are no longer shared, we feel that missing piece of our own story whereby we open our mouth to spout words and more words, hoping to redeem relationships and reconcile the eery silence.

I've heard that as people get older, they don't need to tell their stories as much. Perhaps all of the characters have played their parts or the teller has accepted the inherent mystery that is always open-ended throughout each life story. Personally, I love to listen to the older people's stories. It too is part of my job, and when people let me in to their own story, I feel that it is an honor and a privilege.

Out here in Arbuckle Creek, the stories are always being told. Today a woman came in my office and shared the story of how she got children to march around the room, helping them understand the concept of being God's feet in the world. Then another woman came in to tell me the stories of her granddaughter. A man shared with me the stories he was learning about his family through genealogy. A woman shared the story of her son who gave her his kidney.

Whether Harry Potter or Aunt Virginia, whether Abraham or Jesus, stories become OUR stories as we engage them and write them on our hearts. Thanks for reading another day in my story as the crickets sing their hot summer sun song in the tall grass in the stagnant FL humidity because this is the news from Arbuckle Creek, where all the women drive golf carts, the men are blatant carnivores (EAT MORE BEEF) and the children cautiously play in the backyard, assuming there are no alligators.