story.

I just returned from Birmingham, Alabama. While I would have loved to have spent my time in the deep south tracing the historically significant spots that have grown increasingly important to me in the last several months since I have begun giving more thought to the Civil Rights movement and the weighty task of racial reconciliation, I did not. Instead, I spent hours in seminars on conflict resolution, faith relations programs, and resource development plans in Talladega with 600+ other Habitat Americorps members.

During my week in the deep south, I learned a few things. Since this space has become one for sharing things I learn/am learning, it seemed apropos to lay these thoughts here.

I could have ended up like Ned, a disgruntled agnostic who has studied theology for the last ten years. I could have become Jason, mountain-man, who spends his time wandering around the country looking for things: purpose, good books, whiskey. I am not so removed, either, from Lin who divorced her husband and cannot look into the eyes of her children. I could easily have been much like Janet, carrying around a wounded heart and a couple undone dreams. I could have been Garret, exhausted with living, pouring into his job everything to forget his exhaustion. I could have been many of my peers and colleagues. But for the grace of God, I am not.

“But, I am who I am,
mixture of motives and excuses,
blur of memories,
quiver of hopes,
knot of fear,
tangle of confusion,
and restless with love,
for love.” -Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace

I regularly uncover stories. Perhaps I am easy to talk to, perhaps I am insatiably curious about people, perhaps I am nosy. Stories come out when I am with people, sometimes unravelling, sometimes floating about, sometimes plowing forth, and I like to let them breathe. On good days, I breathe with the stories I hear, small internal prayers, seeking guidance from the Spirit to breathe into the heard stories a glimmer of hope, a chance, maybe for a divine grace to come, heal, maybe redeem a tragedy. On other days, I can only be an empty pail, ready to hold the things I hear, recognizing in others the same restlessness, stubbornness, and selfishness in me.

What’s your story, I found myself asking in a variety of ways this week. I heard them and juggled them, in between seminars and lunches, in a smokey bar, huddled by a bonfire, on park benches. I don’t know what it is that draws me to story, or to learn the things that compose the stories of the people I meet, but there is a steady, undeniable appeal--my humanity and theirs?

I am glad that stories move with us, changing shape with each shaping experience that leads us to a new neck of the woods, hilltops to graze, trees to climb. I am glad that there will always be the chance of a magnificent story of good news to fill in gaps, give more substance to our stories, pull us deeper and closer to ourselves and to the mystery that is God.