It's only a little after 8:00 in the morning and it's my day off, but I'm aware of all the storytelling that has been going on around me in just the little time I've been awake. John Bennet and I have shared our expectations for our days as he left to go to work and we're planning on our grandson, Arthur, and his parents joining us for supper. The video I sent my sister of Arthur eating his first corn on the cob the other night is a visual form of storytelling -- hilarious, by the way. Talk about baby-crack! You should have seen him grab it with both hands when he thought it was going away. But there I go.
We turned on the Today Show, and the first story I heard is that it is fall just about everywhere but here, and our story is that it is only going up to 96 today. Aaaaah, cool breezes. I saw the story of the motorcyclist being dragged out from under a burning car by strangers who risked their lives and have a story to tell. A man in England has adopted a duck. The newspaper is telling the stories of politicians, of fire victims, of the ACL festival, and movies to see or to skip.
The thing is we're not intimidated in the least by telling each other stories. Or are we? The reason that we at St. Alban's are taking on this project is that it seems that many of us are extremely intimidated by the challenge to share the most important story of all, the story of God's love for all creation expressed in the incarnation, life, friendships, healings, teachings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. And all the marvelous stories of the Old Testament that lead up to it and the stories of the New Testament that result from it.
We'll be focusing on learning these stories in church on Sundays and with the story-books that we will take home each week. The reason for this blog is to fill in the gaps. To place the stories in their context. And to help us learn, not only to tell the stories with even more relish than we'll tell the story of the next rain shower, but to have confidence in their relevance to the lives we are living.
The plan is to blog once a week on the story we will be reading in church on Sunday. I'll be back with my thoughts on the first creation story in Genesis a little later. I'll appreciate your reflections, and we'll see how it goes.
I love this idea - sharing the stories with each other...carrying on the spoken tradition of our ancestors. I've spent the last year engrossed in other people's stories...and my own at times as well. I love to hear the stories - that's what makes what I do such a privilege.
ReplyDeleteThank you Margaret for bringing us back to the stories that have shaped our lives as the Body of Christ, as God's own, as spiritual beings living in a world where storytelling - the spoken tradition - is becoming a lost art and where our lives are too complicated not to rely on the wisdom of our past, the wisdom of the Word.
As I'm writing this the hymn "I Love to Tell the Story" is running through my mind. The final verse particularly hits home:
"I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long."
Peace and love,
Madeline
Wow - the verification word to post my comment was "bless"!!! Couldn't have been a more appropriate word. Thanks for being a blessing!
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