Scripture
What’s the role of story in your life? Which stories
are foundational for you? Do you have
stories of who you are, where you come from, why you are here?
Maybe it’s the story of your immigrant
great-grandparents, their courage and their faithfulness. Did you grow up on the retelling of how your
grandparents fell in love and got married quick, before Granddad shipped out
for WWII? Kitchen table stories, holiday
afternoon stories, summer evening stories…stories of your parents’ early years,
the story of your birth…. These stories, shaped by many tellers and many
tellings, have been handed on to you as a way of knowing who you are and where
you come from. And, now, you are telling
your own stories, woven in from the past, or divergent, off on your own new
path. You craft your narrative, consciously or not, making meaning of who you
have been, what you have seen, what is of value to you, what you live for and what
you would die for. The people around
you, especially those closest to you, hold your story. They are able to tell pieces back to you when
you need it and to share it together in community, carrying you, and us all,
forward in the fabric of the tale of the universe.
Some of the truest things I’ve ever known have come to
me through stories. I’m not sure how
much is fact, in the “eyewitness news” sense, but I know that it’s true. As my wife and I tell stories of our 23 years
together, the facts often depend on
the teller: “it was Tuesday”, “no, it was a Wednesday”, “it was your dad”, “no,
it was my uncle”. The details vary but the truth – that we love each other,
that there are kind people who love us, that how you treat people matters –
doesn’t change. The essence of the
stories I was raised on and the stories I am living is where the truth lies
more fully than any facts could ever prove.
Love, suffering, commitment, forgiveness, joy – these things are the
truest true
In our modern sense, we have come to believe
that truth and fact are one and the same.
This has not always been the understanding and certainly wasn’t in the
ancient world as story moved from oral history to written form and then from
translation to translation. The testimony we receive in scripture wasn’t
crafted to hold up in a court of law (or modern search for Noah’s ark or Jesus’
tomb). It was meant to testify: to speak
to the essence of a loving God and that God’s relationship with creation. Scripture is the living story of God and
God’s people, so deeply true and timeless that it transcends ancient origins
and modern limitations.
For me, summer is a time
of stories: beach books, campfire tales, memories created and memories
shared. I invite you to spend time with
scripture this summer, especially the Gospels, letting God’s love story be
written and re-written in you; that its truth can be known both in and through
you as you experience it again.
Contributed by: Bonnie Beadles-Bohling, Lay Leader & Community Organizer, SE Portland
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