Tell me a Story

We live through stories. If you want to know more about someone get her to tell you a story. It is how we communicate our deepest feelings, hopes, the way we see our self, and countless other details.

Stories, most often, come straight out of our experiences.

I can tell you the story of how I met my wife.

I can tell you the story of the first time I saw my son and daughter.

I can tell you the story from a summer vacation.

The list goes on and on.

Because we make sense of our life through stories that come out of our experiences, it is very difficult not to get caught up in thinking, acting, believing that our stories and our experiences are the only truth.

I'll tell you a story. I was visiting with someone the other day who told me a story about a visitor who came over from England and was amazed that people in our countries had actual lots their houses sat on. The person then went over to England and saw first hand row houses and how confining that was compared to Midwest housing development. That story effects how I see my own house and my community.
Or the story of a young man who went to Nicaragua and saw first hand the mixture of poverty and pain and deep joy of a young child's face. It changed his life. And his story is now woven into my story and expands (if I let it) how I see the world.

Our experiences and stories are at once powerful and profound; as well as limited given the diversity of our world.

Growing up in the Midwest gave me a particular way of processing things. I would be different if I grew up in the South. Growing up in a lower middle class home gave me a particular way of seeing the world. I would be different if I grew up in a different economic bracket. Growing up white, male, and heterosexual continues to impact what I view and believe is normal. Growing up on the 80s on a steady diet of the Smurfs has certainly shaped my understanding of the world.

Now, to be sure, I don't preface every story I tell with the above list of disclaimers. But the stories I tell are shaped because of who I am, where I am and when I was born.

The stories you tell both proclaim truth and don't quite fully hit the nail on the head for all times and places. The stories you tell both proclaim who you are...to the extent that you choose to tell some stories while keeping others to yourself. The stories you tell are both sacred and could use some fact checking.

When I say the Bible is a sacred, holy story, I mean that in the most honest sense I can. It points us to deep truths of who God and Jesus and the Spirit were and are. It points us to the promise of God. It points us to the reality that humans can be incredibly faithful one moment and making a golden calf to dance around the next moment. Are there contradictions? Sure. So too in the stories I tell every day. Does it make you or I any less trustworthy? Does it make us dishonest people? Should we leave stories behind because they not always perfect? I don't think so. It makes us fully human and fully created in God's image. I believe God loves a good story God delights not in dissecting the details of a story, but in the flow and connections and pain and joy and truth stories point to. God delights when we talk about a fish this big or the vacation where the suitcases got lost or the time we were driving to Des Moines, IA.

Which reminds me of a story....

May the traces of grace be heard and found in the stories you share and listen to this day.

Blessings