Brevity

Well, I am taking yet another class. I know. I can hear it now....when exactly to you plan to be educated. I think the answer to that is.....I am not sure I do. I love the process of learning. I find it fascinating. I had a funny experience a couple of years ago. My pastor got all worked up about getting to go on a behind the scenes tour of the IT system at Church of the Resurrection. I will admit I was a little tired and I could really not see the value in looking into closets and basements and examining wires and pretty lights. Before long I discovered that this source of information knew all there was to know about running networks. information storage, speed, enormous phone systems, computer expenses, operating budgets and managing an inventory. I was completely in, now my pastor was lagging behind a little but I was on our guide like glue. I still walk past doors we went into and think, I know what's in there.

So, I am back in another class and we are learning story telling techniques. Our homework for this week is to tell our faith story, life before conversion, events leading to conversion and life after conversion. The catch is, we have to do it in three minutes or less. It was suggested that I write, I was a sinner, I was forgiven, and I am living in grace. This is accurate and certainly less than three minutes but I think it fails story telling.

So, I wrote this:

I was born the third child to parents who had planned for two. According to the stories, I was discontent in my father’s care and though I was certainly made with his image and many of his characteristics, I was not my father’s daughter. We shared the same love of music and quirky thinking; we did not connect in them. I searched diligently for a father very early in my life. My father, in addition to teaching music, was a church musician and being in church was a part of my early years though my memories are limited to lighting candles in Sunday School and my brother’s horror of my behavior while singing in front of the church. This was bad experience for him, a delightful experience for me.

I was nine when I went with some neighboring kids to see a movie. I do not remember a thing about the movie only when it was over everyone was crying and people were praying and someone asked me if I wanted Jesus to be my savior and I said sure. When I was eleven a group of college kids spending their summer doing week long camps in neighborhoods came to mine. They taught me more about Jesus and connected me with a lady who sent me weekly Bible studies where I had to read the material and take a test. At twelve my mother took me back to the Episcopal Church where I was confirmed in the faith by Bishop Applegate, who fell out of the pulpit but retained the right to confirm though perhaps with less dignity.

Since those defining moments, my life has been a steady though often erratic journey in grace. The lack of connection and distrust of others has over the years developed into a deep confidence in my identity as a child of God and dependence on His love to satisfy that longing inside. As He has brought healing over the years, He has also brought redemption in using the previous hurts as points of connections for others. My father died nine years ago, following the birth of my third child. He never became the father I wanted but we did form the connection I needed. After years of separation from God my father made his own profession of faith, and went home confident in the acceptance he would find there.

You know, it's not the whole story or even half of the story, yet it tells the story. Maybe there is something to those cute little sound bites and one liners.
Maybe the rest of the story doesn't always need to follow. Perhaps like clutter we should pare down some of our details, or save them for those who need them.

It's a thought. Bet I could have said, talk less and made the same point. Too late, now we will never know.