tell me a story

This God made us all in our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways.
His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God - grope for him in the darkness, as it were - hoping to find Him.
Yet in truth, God is not far from any of us.
For you know the saying, "We live in God, we move in God; we exist in God."

... when they heard ... some shook their heads and scoffed, but others were even more curious ... 

Acts 17:26-28


I love these stories - these organic, dramatic, weird stories of old from this Great Storybook. These stories are not for children. Or maybe they are. Maybe its anti-exclusivity is what makes it the most beautiful. We like to change the story so it makes sense. We assume things. Or we ignore the mystery. It's always been hard for me to ignore. For whatever reason, I have not been a scoffer at hearing such things as divine creation, unfailing love, and redemption. Maybe it's the poet in me that appreciates such language - a poet's heart that somehow believes such nonsense in the face of our real life tragedies.

This theme of "story" has been present in my life for a while. I have at least one thought every day of how can I be intentional about what's happening in and around and to me; how can I both embrace and create a great story, for there is one already happening, and there is also one yet to be told. Yet to be birthed and lived in and given a chance.
Both of those stories are me. Both of those stories are you, too.

I happened upon a most curious sight last weekend, strolling in the chilly wind with Micha and Kip. A few people were huddled under a bridge with this large canvas sort of thing. Curiosity (and the love of this city and its interesting people) got the best of us, and we ventured closer. We became part of a wonderful phenomenon called public art, where a brave and inspired artist provides a piece for you to create and bring their vision to life. Maddie is both brilliant and brave. We weaved our strips of burlappy fabric in and out to form, in the end, a lovely quilt. And we did our required part of participation:
we told her a story, while she listened and recorded them.

For me, the specifics of the stories were not as grand as the whole piece as we experienced it this past Friday. Sitting in a room (with exposed brick, I might add) while story after story after story was being told over the sound system was nothing short of awesome. The parts I did catch, between meeting and talking to our new friends, were simply amazing. Seeing this creation that hung over us in that room, a thing that had been manufactured by not just hands but by people with deep emotion and deep hearts, stilled me. And I couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop celebrating the greatness of it all. So much came together that night, that week. So much is still being formed and connected and woven. Creation. Hope. Purpose.

Another fabulous fact about Maddie's quilt is that it's compostable, so those of us who participated can have some of the rich soil that will eventually come from this project. Recycling. Restoring. I have so many thoughts around this, as you can tell. The theme of story also has another part for me and that is "full circle"ness. Many of my desires to be connected to Minneapolis via its broken and beautiful people seem to finally be landing and resting here. Here being a specific place with specific people - people who long to be who they are, be creative, be friends with the different, and take part in healing, in genuine family, inhaling and exhaling, moving and having their being in Jesus.
Like this art, there are times and seasons when all of these components of us, of our stories, seem to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and we cry or laugh or both, knowing that in a strikingly holy way our lives are much grander than we thought, and our God seems much smaller and closer and into the details than we've previously experienced - the intricate weaving of hands and hearts and stories. And he's also into the great and glorious big picture of everything - us working together towards wholeness and life and re-creation. His full-circle story.

Today I feel as though I'm adding significantly to my story, and more fully accepting the truth that every moment is a choice to sail or stagnate.
Today I feel like I have chosen in little, intentional ways to not just pass by but to stop and let curiosity woo me into mystery and thus deeper into my life. As Fred says...



"two stories then - our own story and Jesus' story, and in the end perhaps they are the same story. To cleave the truth of our own lives, to lift and look beneath our own stories, is to see glimmers at least of his life, of his life struggling to come alive in our lives, his story whispering like a song through the babble and drone of ours... our stories are the best parody of his story, and if as Paul says we are the fragrance of Christ, then it is like the fragrance of the sea from ten miles inland when the wind is in the right direction, or like the fragrance of a rose from the other side of the street, with all the world in between.
yet they meet as well as diverge, our stories and his.
that's what we have to tell finally.
we have it in us to work miracles of love and healing as well as have them worked upon us... to bless with him and forgive with him, and once in a while maybe even to grieve with some measure of his grief at another's pain and to rejoice with some measure of his rejoicing at another's joy, almost as if it were our own...
it is our business to bear witness to, and live out of and live toward and live by the true word of his holy story as it seeks to stammer itself forth through the holy stories of us all."

-Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember


let us live our stories
and live them well.
amen&amen.