Funny how some things stick in your mind like a companion that keeps you company on a long journey. It may come in the form of a recurring word or theme that nourishes you through some difficult season. For some it’s a wisdom that some beloved grandparent gave you. Maybe it’s a habit of being or some quirky phrase you’ve embraced as your own to share with a generation yet unborn. In doing that, you keep a treasured thing alive. If perchance you’ve received the gift as your own, you pass it along in love in the same manner in which you received it, thus ensuring it’s goodness will be treasured by someone you love.

My grandparents are living in my memory more acutely now, particularly as I grow older and their absence becomes more missed. My paternal grandmother’s smile stands out. I hadn’t noticed her smile so much on my behalf because I was so busy being me and didn’t pay close attention. But when my children were young, I was amazed at how much she glowed when she greeted them. She held nothing back in showing them how much she loved them. When she greeted them at her door, she flashed the warmest smile you can imagine and gave them huge hugs. Then she would dig out some sweet snack she kept in her cupboard just for moments like these.

But there’s so much more if we think about it …

I once had an older, retired pastor-friend who shared a generorsity of spirit with me borne out of the same spirit of my grandmother. This older friend would light up when I appeared on his doorstep. Sometimes I would be out visiting the sick in the hospital and would call him from the hospital on my way out knowing my drive back to the office would take me near his home. I realize now my suggestion to stop by for a visit was a welcomed word for a man who had more time than energy. He was a man who was less needed now than he had been as an active minister. He had too much time on his hands to read all the things he struggled to find the time to read before and perhaps it only accentuated his loneliness. I can see all that now. Then all I knew was his generous welcome to my own self-invitation to stop by to talk about books, sermons and ministry.

A few years later, when I was pastoring in San Antonio, all our visits came through letters and an occasional phone visit. His generosity came in written words, not in face-to-face visits. But the love still shown through and I basked in his care. Because of a lifetime of preaching, every letter became a treasure at the hands of a wordsmith who could say so much with ease and only a handful of carefully crafted words.

So every now and then, as I’ve learned to treasure the goodness of simple words or gestures given from the heart, something sticks in my mind and I nurture myself in its meaning.

Yesterday in George Underwood’s funeral, I shared a thought I’ve embraced as a life-theme. You’ve surely heard it from me before, but not too much, I hope. Here it is:

“What God is doing is like a river flowing through time. We are a craft on that river. We do not carry the river, it carries us.”

Joel Gregory said that in an interview back in 2000. I’m sure it was a line carefully crafted in his study for some book he was writing or for some sermon he had recently preached. But he delivered the line to a reporter as though it was an off-the-cuff phrase, or as a throw away line he just stumbled across. But I don’t believe something that beautiful, that artfully cast, was a throw away line for me. It came in a time of great grief and it became a friend to me to help me reframe my own sense of loss.

Old habits, lost lines, smiles that exude love, the lift of a voice glad to hear your own voice asking for a short visit … all of these are ways we experience God’s goodness and a providence that makes meaning out of loss and grief. They are sustaining gifts for the journey when darkness threatens and fear gathers like a storm.

Father Francis McGlaughlin tells the story of a rabbi and son who went for a walk one day. “Son,” the rabbi said, “make the road shorter.” Perplexed, the boy said, “I cannot shorten the road father except to walk faster.” “You are no help to me, son,” the rabbi said, “We might as well go home.” And they went back home.

The next day they set out again. “Son, shorten the road,” the rabbi said. “Father,” he replied, “I cannot shorten the road except to walk faster.” Exasperated at the boy, they again went home.

When they got home, the son ran to his mother and told her what happened two days in a row. “Son you are boy without sense,” his mother said. “When your father tells you to shorten the road tomorrow, begin a story and I guarantee he will not bring you home.”

The next day they set out again. “Son, shorten the road,” the rabbi said as usual. The son began a story, and they did not go back this time, but continued to the end of their journey.

Abraham Heschel once observed that, “God loves people because God loves stories.” That’s a reminder to us that our memories are brimming with the stories of our lives. They are uncountable but they are all known by God. Some of them are not even accessible to us although we recognize they are not lost, they’ve just been pushed to some unknown storehouse of memory because the honesty of them cannot be sustained by us in present memory.

Some cannot remember much from a particular season in their life so painful those memories are banished to some back closet of our minds. They are so unbearable we cannot stand being in the room with them. They have a power over us so unduly hard we cannot hold them in memory.

Our stories are not neatly organized and they are resistant to any notion of our complete understanding of them. They form an enormous library of emotions and symbols of both the small and the large experiences we accumlate by being human. We can experience them as simple snapshots of times we recognize but cannot describe. They can be so simple we blush at the thought that anyone would want to hear them.

“I remember a story …” we might say. Or perhaps you’ve heard someone say offhandedly, “I could tell you stories …” My hunch is we long for the chance to tell our stories with one another because we suspect we could find common ground together. Maybe if we can tell one another our stories we could deepen the friendships we already cherish

Some, though, hide their stories out of a sense of shame. Most often, I’ve found that when we come out of the closet of our shame we discover there are others who have similar stories to tell and we discover we are not alone. Sharing our stories can be frighteningly intimate and some are afraid those stories will bring shame or highlight the fear they are not significant.

Because I preach and teach by telling stories, I know in those moments when we enter into holy time together, if I’m doing my job my stories will inevitably evoke your stories. Even though I’m the only one in the room talking, stories are being told in the hazy memories that float through your brain. Some of them you tell me about when the service is over. “Remember when you were talking about thus and so? Here’s what that story reminded me of when I was young …” I understand your stories mean you were preaching the sermon to yourself and using your own amazing reservoir of stories to illustrate the truths of the sermon. Don’t worry about the competition over who’s preaching the best sermons … you make me happy when you experience worship using your own good stories. More often than not, the best stories have been yours and they make a so-so sermon better.

Most of this week, I’ve participated in a training seminar on narrative leadership with other ministers who, like me, serve as peer learning group leaders with other pastors. I meet monthly at William Jewell College with fourteen other pastors with whom I’ve become very close because we attend to one another’s stories. We hear them with care and tender affection simply because we all serve the church. We bear one another’s burdens as Paul instructs us to do. We listen intently knowing we have a safe place to offload our pain with pastors who know exactly what we mean when we admit, “I am a called person who serves the church.”

Some of my favorite moments in church come in those liminal moments when we feel safe with one another and know our friendship is strong enough to contain our most honest stories. In that holy space, we discover the heightened awareness we are not as alone as we suspect and that if we pay attention, a silent witness is with us … bearing our pain and shining light for our journeys together.

“Rev, I’ve been reading a lot about the God-Ticket lately. You don’t suppose our politicians have enough gall to claim God’s endorsement for their political views, do you?”

“Of course they do! Seems in politics, like in most bad religion, that the more ludicrous the claim, the more someone will try to sell it.”

Birdie and I share in common a deep love for politics. At heart, we’re both true political junkies. Funny how our deep interest in the church is not too far from our interest in politics. Not hard to do when the Baptist cardinals are hard-wired to the right wing of the Republican Party.

“Birdie, one of my seminary buddies has gone one farther than even Jerry Falwell would consider doing. It wasn’t enough for him to hang the biggest danged flag you’ve ever seen above the choir loft. Heck, lots of preachers do that! By the way, do you think they order those jumbo flags from ‘Fundies-R-Us?’ Preaching on July 4th in an election year was too tempting for a fool like him and he did something so blatantly stupid the IRS is now after him. He’s even made their investigation easier! All they had to do was order one of his videos of the service offered on his website. I’ll bet he added them to his list of ministry contributors!”

“Preacher, how could someone be so proud of excelling at ignorance?”

“Ego, my friend, ego. My old buddy has more ego than any three ministers I know, and that says a lot. He was born with it … had it when he entered seminary. He already knew more than his professors in class before he entered the classroom. He was only there to get his ticket punched. It’s mighty hard to teach someone who doesn’t see the need to learn.”

“Rev, what did he do? What happened on July 4th that would get him in trouble with the feds?”

“He was preaching on the God-Ticket. Pure and simple, he was telling people what issues God was concerned about in this election year. You can guess what all was on the list. All the usual stuff … no real surprises. But when he said if we loved God, we would vote the God-Ticket, ‘Shazamm!’ the President’s picture flashed on the Jumbo-Tron behind him. Mind you, he never said the President’s name. He’s just smart enough to not tell us we ought to vote for W. But the whole time he was describing the God-Ticket, a montage of pics of the President filled the screen almost as if God was putting on the slide show Himself.”

Birdie looked puzzled. “Not too smart … but not totally stupid either … just mildly so. I give him three Floridian chads out of five for effort.”

“Wait, that’s not all. He closed the loop of logic by implying there was also an Anti-God-Ticket. Can you see it coming? The issues on the Anti-God-Ticket were all the ones supported by Senator Kerry and the Democrats! And guess who’s picture mysteriously popped up on the screen as soon as he said the magic words? Nobody ever named the Senator but his picture was three stories high behind the preacher’s sparkling smile. When you’re too full of God, you can make Balaam’s jackass look smart! In fact, the whole donkey world is elevated whenever a preacher with a massive ego enters the pulpit. Certainty is a powerful thing!”

“Birdie, they say beauty’s only skin deep but stupid goes down to the bone. Of course, the tragedy is now he’s claiming the Feds are after him and he’s playing the victim. Claims he only did what God told him to do and claimed his freedom of speech. Interesting that he wants to have the protection of the government for freedom of speech but not willing to abide by the separation of church and state.”

Birdie’s face just started melting. I wasn’t sure whether she was laughing or crying. She put her hand over her mouth and tried hard to keep from bursting out in her laughter but she couldn’t help herself. She laughed so hard her sides shook up and down and the tears started flowing.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said apologetically.

“Don’t give it a thought,” she said when she could catch her breath. “I was envisioning the irony of all those tax cuts offered to all the rich, upper-crust of our society and how little difference it made to the rest of us poor working wretches. I can’t help but snickering about how helpful it will be when your buddy’s church has to pay taxes on all they take in every Sunday as payment for the sin of showing us the picture of the candidates God wants us to vote for. I appreciate their generosity!”

“Nice to know my preacher buddy’s thinking of all of us in such generous ways! Birdie, do you need me to tell you how to vote?”

“Preacher, are you feeling frisky? Just help us love Jesus and we’ll figure it out on our own.”