Power in the Story

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

 
THERE IS POWER IN THE STORY
 
 
Bob Robling came up to me at our class reunion with his usual bright and handsome smile. He is one of those classmates who does not fear reunions because he’s just as good-looking and just as wavy-haired as in high school, only a little more mature.
 
“Do you remember that summer after high school when you and I and Dave Lamb and Don Taylor went around each Sunday to different churches and we sang as a quartet and you preached?” he asked. I assured him I did, remembering mostly the regularity with which I let the bass part slip over under Bob’s lead tenor, so that it sounded like an adolescent frog was singing melody.
 
“I’ve always said,” he beamed, “that the best preacher I ever heard was an eighteen-year old kid.”
 
This tells us two things: One is that Bob hasn’t been to church much in the last fifty years. [1] The second is that there is power, and even sanity, in narrative.
 
I didn’t know how to preach back then, so I told stories. People respond to stories. Biblical stories. Personal stories. Historical stories. Passed-around stories. [2] We respond to stories because we don’t live in theories or propositions or theologies or mental constructs. We live in story.
 
In his book, THE 7 SINS OF MEMORY: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, Daniel L. Schacter, the Chair of Harvard’s Dept. of Psychology, talks in Chpt. 7 of the problem of persistence in memory, bad memories that depress us because they won’t leave. Research indicates that the problem is “rumination,” which is generalized memory, rather than narrative memory. When people can tell about past experiences in story form rather than simply ruminating on them, stirring around in them, as in the generalizations like “I felt really bad and unhappy,” or “Crappy things always happen to me,” the power of the memory to depress lifts. [3] You get power to heal your own life when you can tell your story.
 
The same is true with illness. When I got cancer, I read that people who went to a support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I also read that those who kept a journal of their experiences and feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy; that’s 100%! I started going to support group, where we told our stories to one another, and keeping a journal. [4]
 
The “sins” of memory are transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. All of them are of special concern to old people. Ironically, the one that is most debilitating, persistence, is the one about which we can do the most. Just tell the story.
 
I never did learn to preach. I just kept telling stories. The best preachers I’ve ever heard are those who told stories with their lives. Bob has done that as a teacher, a singer, a son, a husband, a father, a friend. He has been told he has only four to six weeks to live. With typical grace, he said, “I’ve had a great life. I have no complaints.” That’s a story worth repeating.
 
JRMcF
 
1] I said this at our reunion dinner, and Bob protested after that he’s been to church a lot in the last 50 years, but I still think it’s a good line.
 
2] A layperson asked another what preachers do at conferences. “They trade stories,” he was told. “I think ours gets cheated,” he replied.
 
3] This is a very brief summary. You can read it for yourself starting on page 170.
 
4] The journal became NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them. [AndrewsMcMeel. There are also audio, Czech, and Japanese versions.]
 
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
 
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series.
 
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
 

THE REPLACEMENT CHILD

 
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
 
The Replacement Child
 
I suppose each one of us is a replacement child in the grand scheme of things, but I have known only two intentional replacement children. One was a girl in The Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] at Indiana State University in Terre Haute when I was the campus minister there. I did a lot of counseling with her. The other one died on Sunday, June 10. During our years as colleagues in Charleston, IL, he did a lot of counseling with me.
 
George W. Loveland was the director/campus minister of The Wesley Foundation at Eastern Illinois University during the time I was directing minister at Wesley United Methodist Church. The WF building was located in the church’s front yard, and although The WF had a separate board and budget, George operated very much as a member of our church staff. It was an exceptionally good staff, and George helped to make it such.
 
George loved language and used it both well and cleverly. We had a student from Ghana at EIU, Clement Asare, pronounced uh-sor´ry. His father had written me from Ghana to ask me to look out for him. Clement was a bit older than the usual undergrad, but we had several very nice young single professionals in the congregation, so we arranged a supper at our house to introduce them to Clement. He assured us he would be there. Everybody else came, but no Clement. We didn’t know it at the time, but his culture demanded that he say “yes” to any invitation from an elder, but didn’t require him to come. We had a good time, though, so we decided to keep meeting as a young singles group. Each time we invited Clement. Each time he accepted. Each time he failed to show. George named the group The Clement Asare Supper Society, and suggested that we could take turns pretending to be Clement and whenever someone arrived, they could ask, “Who’s Asare now?”
 
During the presidential campaign of 2000, he ended a sermon with “I’m George W. Loveland, and I approved this message.”
 
He was usually one of our liturgists for our second worship service on Sunday morning. That was the one that had the majority of students, and we wanted them to see our campus minister in that worship-leadership role. He gave the prayer after the sermon, and if he felt I had gotten something wrong, or incomplete, during the prayer he would “perfect” what I said during the sermon. I didn’t mind; I figured George was as likely to be led by the Holy Spirit as I was, and it gave people a choice.
 
I have often described my time at Wesley UMC in Charleston as “seven years of hell.” My successor, Terry Clark, worked hard to help me make peace with my experiences there, a very gracious and highly unusual thing for a successor, giving me far more credit for advances in the church than I deserved. During those seven years, though, it was George who kept me sane. It was very hard for George to compliment anyone, but one way or another he would remind me that although there was a small and well-organized opposition to me, [George called them “the children of darkness.” Well, I called them that, too.] I was doing good preaching and good pastoral work and that the vast majority of the congregation appreciated my work. I knew he had my back.
 
George had two older sisters, and an older brother, Howard. He never knew Howard, though. He was killed in a train accident when he was ten. George’s parents had him specifically to replace Howard. I have often wondered how that affected George, because I knew how difficult it was for that girl in Terre Haute who had been conceived to replace her sister, even down to having the same name. He was a private person, though, and we never talked about that. All Helen and I ever really knew about George was that he was our friend, and we love him, and we shall miss him.
 
George never married. He had no children. Somewhere, though, at 2:35 on Saturday, June 10, a replacement child was born. He will not be named George, but I hope that child will be as good a person as the one he is replacing.
 
GWL’s memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, June 16, at 3:00 pm, at Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities, 3019 N. Harrison, Davenport, IA.
 
JRMcF
 
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
 
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series.
 
I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}