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Monday, May 16, 2005
Finding a Plot in Our Lives
“After air, food, and water, the thing we most need is that our lives mean something.
That life is meaningless, arbitrary, and random is espoused in many places, believed in few, and accepted with equanimity in none. The desperate eloquence of many who insist that such is the nature of life is itself a testimony to our passionate desire for meaning.
. . .Story is a vessel for carrying meaning.”
~ Daniel Taylor in Tell Me a Story (Bog Walk Press, 2001)
This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it.
Amazon has several reader reviews you can check out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0970651104/qid=1116255671/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0608575-7243834?v=glance&s=books
That life is meaningless, arbitrary, and random is espoused in many places, believed in few, and accepted with equanimity in none. The desperate eloquence of many who insist that such is the nature of life is itself a testimony to our passionate desire for meaning.
. . .Story is a vessel for carrying meaning.”
~ Daniel Taylor in Tell Me a Story (Bog Walk Press, 2001)
This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it.
Amazon has several reader reviews you can check out: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0970651104/qid=1116255671/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0608575-7243834?v=glance&s=books
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
More Small Town Story
Continued from Previous Posts . . .
One series of stories my mom wrote followed the life of a local girl named Anita. Anita was about ten years old and had been diagnosed with bone cancer. Each week, my mother's column presented another angle to Anita’s story. First, she described Anita as a normal 4th grader – which she was. She loved playing with her friends, listening to music and had a blast making clay sculptures in art class. But after she learned of the cancer, Anita’s life changed dramatically. My mother’s columns shifted to details surrounding the trips to the hospital and the torturous chemotherapy. She wrote about Anita’s reaction to her illness and how her family responded to care for her.
Finally the doctors had no choice but to remove Anita’s leg to keep the cancer from spreading. It was a heart wrenching process for Anita to adapt to life on crutches and then with a prosthetic leg. Even though her young age helped her rebound more quickly than an adult, she could never again interact in the same way with her friends. Walking to class, carrying her books, even the routine of going through the lunch line at the school cafeteria became on ordeal. Her world changed radically. There was scarcely a person in the town who wasn’t touched in some way by watching and helping Anita and her family cope with a new world.
So, through the telling of her story, everyone in the town knew Anita as more than just another girl who lived down the street. And, because she was the girl who lived down the street, practically everyone in town had great empathy. Everyone knew Anita’s story and everyone believed in Anita. Her story rallied the whole town together. Neighbors and church members took extraordinary measures to make the long trips to the hospital as bearable as possible. Meals were prepared, transportation provided, encouraging words were spoken and extra hours were spent by Anita’s classmates and teachers to help her catch up on schoolwork. In some measure, the brutality of the suffering was lessened.
So, through the telling of Anita’s story, redemption occurred.
One series of stories my mom wrote followed the life of a local girl named Anita. Anita was about ten years old and had been diagnosed with bone cancer. Each week, my mother's column presented another angle to Anita’s story. First, she described Anita as a normal 4th grader – which she was. She loved playing with her friends, listening to music and had a blast making clay sculptures in art class. But after she learned of the cancer, Anita’s life changed dramatically. My mother’s columns shifted to details surrounding the trips to the hospital and the torturous chemotherapy. She wrote about Anita’s reaction to her illness and how her family responded to care for her.
Finally the doctors had no choice but to remove Anita’s leg to keep the cancer from spreading. It was a heart wrenching process for Anita to adapt to life on crutches and then with a prosthetic leg. Even though her young age helped her rebound more quickly than an adult, she could never again interact in the same way with her friends. Walking to class, carrying her books, even the routine of going through the lunch line at the school cafeteria became on ordeal. Her world changed radically. There was scarcely a person in the town who wasn’t touched in some way by watching and helping Anita and her family cope with a new world.
So, through the telling of her story, everyone in the town knew Anita as more than just another girl who lived down the street. And, because she was the girl who lived down the street, practically everyone in town had great empathy. Everyone knew Anita’s story and everyone believed in Anita. Her story rallied the whole town together. Neighbors and church members took extraordinary measures to make the long trips to the hospital as bearable as possible. Meals were prepared, transportation provided, encouraging words were spoken and extra hours were spent by Anita’s classmates and teachers to help her catch up on schoolwork. In some measure, the brutality of the suffering was lessened.
So, through the telling of Anita’s story, redemption occurred.
Friday, May 06, 2005
My Mom's Small Town News Stories
continued from yesterday . . .
Sometimes after an interview with a local townsman, she would find that there was much more she wanted to know – many more questions to ask, more details to connect. And, once my mother began to uncover a story, she just couldn’t stop! In fact, on several occasions, her “featured story” ended up as our dinner guest on Sundays after church. Now our whole family could finally “see” what she had been talking about all week! As we talked around the dinner table, my mom would conduct an informal interview – asking questions and listening to our guest tell his story. Sometimes it would be near 3 O’clock before we rose from the table – often at the insistence of our guest. The story had to end when our seats could endure no longer. For a 14 year old boy (me), sitting for 3 hours while our family conversed over the life of some schoolteacher, business entrepreneur or a fourth generation cotton farmer who owned a third of the county could not have been more boring.
The local chamber of commerce often described and promoted our town as “A special place with special people.” But I often thought, “what’s really so special about them?” My mom taught me: it isn’t their achievements, heritage, or even their social refinement ( or lack thereof?). They were special because they each had a story. I didn’t see myself as fortunate at the time, but I was extremely fortunate to be drawn in to some of these stories.
More later. Next time I'll share one of my mom's "featured stories" . . .
Thursday, May 05, 2005
What’s the Big Deal?
Is it really fair to say that my story – and everyone’s story - has any GREAT amount of significance? If you had asked me this question about 20 years ago, I would have clearly said “NO.” Even by the age of 14, I had heard more than my fair share of personal stories.
Until she retired a few years ago, my mother was a journalist for a local small town newspaper. In fact, it was our town’s only newspaper. And, basically, she was the only full time journalist. So in essence, for over 20 years, she wrote the newspaper! Whatever was news to her was THE news.
Now perhaps I make it sound a little like she invented the news. That was not the case. Definitely she is an excellent, reputable writer. And I think most people in the town would agree that her writings were not frivolous nor tainted with gossip. Yet, in this remote town, there just ain’t that much news to write about! People grow cotton or corn and raise livestock. The minutes at the city council meeting often describe meaty decisions such as what color to paint the town’s water tower or whether or not the sanitation service should move from a weekly to bi-weekly trash collection schedule. The police department investigates its fair share of crimes, but it’s not too unusual for the most exciting police work of the week to include rescuing a cat from a storm drain.
So, if there was scant news to scoop on, what DID my mother write about? . . . People! Normal everyday BORING people who lived in our boring town. A couple of times a month, she would pick a common stock citizen and write a full feature, front page feature story on that person’s significance in the town. My mother would say that she was simply discovering a local story and relaying it to the public.
More on this next time. . .
