In the Meantime I Tell Stories

I watched "Big Fish" recently. It got mixed reviews, but I loved it. It's about a man who tells the stories of his life to his son and to anyone else who will listen. His tales are so wildly exaggerated that the boy is never able to sort out the truth of his father's history. In the end he finds out there was more to his father's stories than he suspected, but he never gets the whole truth. He must find a way to be at peace with not knowing.

What son ever knows the truth of his father's life? For that matter, what son knows the truth of his own life?

I once heard someone ask a man if he was a hard worker. The man said, "I like to think that I am."

I think that's the best answer that can be given.

Like Walt Whitman we sing the song of ourselves. Each of us imagines and tells his own story. Some of us try very hard to stick to the facts, and some of us find it difficult to separate what we wish was true from what actually happened. Memory is a giggling sprite and will not be tamed. She takes flight the moment the present becomes the past.

If you were to ask if my own story is fact or fancy, I would not know how to answer you.

The sun sets late in that town, so I often went to bed while it was still light. I listened to bible stories on the record player until their words became my words and my heart sang with their longing. Integrity and Desire were on the other side of the house. With their little boy in bed, the hours passed quickly as they remembered the old days when it was just the two of them. But I lived in every moment until darkness fell. Time slowed down for me, and it was in those days that my joy was wed to story.

I left home and did wander far and wide, searching for something I could never name, something the old stories hinted at. I found love once, lost it, and had it returned to me in the mail. She knows the story, and I still have the letter. I wondered if this was what I was looking for.

I came home to those old records, blew off the dust, and played them again. Joy broke my heart. I wondered if this was what I was looking for.

I worked the stories hard and pulled every good thing out of them. And then some silly people asked if I would tell these stories every Sunday morning. I said, "Yes," and they said, "Welcome home." I wondered if this was what I was looking for.

And every story I tell is a gospel story, for they are the only ones I know. I lift my eyes, and all I see are stars and sun and blue. I put my hands down, and all I feel are the heads of children. And even my darkest, hardest stories have a hint of good news peeking out of the shadow.

There is something out there. I feel it. The old stories bring me closer, so I tell them and I call the telling worship. I have never been able to put a name to what I seek. I only know that I long for something and have not found it.

In the meantime, I tell stories.

© Copyright 2005 Preacher. Last update: 7/17/2005; 8:23:34 PM. Links