Stories: The Ones I Am Increasingly Tuned In To

It is quiet in my house this morning. Buddy sits beside me on the floor. He seems content, not that it takes him much to be in that spot. He is a curious part of my story, and even of our story, the “our” of Charla and me, and the “our” of our sons and grandsons, and also anyone who comes to our house or in the neighborhood finds themselves often enrapt by this handsome and playful dog.

We are all story-tellers of sorts. Some of us tell them quietly by the way we live, the things we do and the things we do not do. Some of us are story tellers with words, words which have meaning that we put on pages both the paper kind and the electronic kind. We have some degree of intention with those words and stories: to inform, to shape, to change, to cajole, to connect. Some of us tell intentional stories and some of us tell reactive stories. Which is which, I often wonder.

I am increasingly enrapt by God’s story, how people capture all or part of God’s story, and then how we use that whole or pieces toward particular ends. Even God’s story is not immune from politics, and politics enters the scene when there are at least two of us. A difference of some sort is called for in hushed tones or in shouts from the mountain top. I want the story of God as I see the story of God to shape how you see the story of God and what you are doing that has implications for the story of God. If you and I see the story of God similarly, then my story has meaning and purpose, and if not, then what do I do?

Listening to the story in the words of James Cone and his book, “A Black Theology of Liberation,” is hard. He tells us his story of studying theology and becoming like the white men who had taught him or whose books he had read. Then, he realized that he was Black, from a Black community, that he had Black ancestry, and that he must spell out a theology of liberation for His people and for anyone who engages with his people.

From 1994 up until even these days, I have heard stories of African American farmers and their families who have suffered under the unflinching power of law, policy, and procedure of people who tell themselves a certain set of stories and who live out stories with certain themes and subthemes. My story has been shattered and reshaped and re-reshaped by sitting in living rooms, walking the fields, standing around the tractors, eating shared meals, and listening to stories of farming while Black. A white guy who worked for the USDA once said to me, “You are going to speak at this conference. Right? I’d like for you to tell them to just get over it and move on.” He was telling his story and his corporate, lawed, ruled, and policied up story. My brash, stunned, advocating for a righteous cause story would not allow me to do that, so my words were, “No, I will not insult them by saying that.”

In that moment was a collision of stories, worldviews, and whatever else you want to call it. I remain in that place and space. And the narrative has many, many applications.

So, I think I’ll keep “Listening to the Story of My Life,” using words of Frederick Buechner, trying to listen more attentively to God’s story of liberation for His people through the Gospel story, and listening and learning and validating the lived experiences of people who are not like me. Their stories are important.