"Childhood is the small town everyone came from."
Garrison Keillor
Once upon a time
we all
were a child.
Oh,
our stories vary...
but they also
contain
many of the same
events,
emotions,
experiences.
For instance...
Some were bullies.
Some were bullied.
Just as the Church
remembers
and speaks by name
each week:
Pontius Pilate...
I remember
Tommy Crosby.
(side note: Tommy
Crosby lived in
River Plantation just
outside Conroe, Texas
in the late 70's. If you
know him today...tell
him I remember his
name...his story.)
Tommy Crosby
was a bully....
my bully.
He no longer has
power over
me.
For
I've been taught
that when we speak
aloud the names of people
and those things
that break us...
they no longer
have power over us.
So come drink a beer
with me Tommy...
or cup of coffee
if you don't drink
alcohol.
Come sit with me now
and
let us share
our stories.
Whatever else the child may suffer from, it does not
suffer from remoteness of life, normally....
it is fully alive, and that is why people, thinking back
to their own childhood, long to have that naive vitality
which they have lost in becoming grown-ups.
The child is an inner possibility,
the possibility for renewal.
- Marie-Loise Von Franz
Perhaps we all would do well
to remember our stories,
to share them,
listen to them....
especially those of us in the church
who have become fond of
pointing at each other
and calling each other names.
Perhaps our stories
would help us to
move beyond
our willingness
to so easily
condemn each other.
Just perhaps...
memories of the
small town
we've
all come from
would help us
find our way
together.
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