A Story Can Reveal a People

Back in the last quarter of the 1800's an eight year old boy in Alabama was the sole survivor of a fire that killed everyone else in his family. The only relatives he knew of lived in Kosciusko, Mississippi, some two hundred miles away. It took him several weeks to get there, but he made it, walking with bare feet. That little boy was my Great-grand-father Hamilton.

When I learned this story I realized it said a lot about the men in my family. We tend to be independent and not ask for help. We tend to solve problems by just plugging away at them.  We are down to earth and practical though perhaps not the most efficient. Kossuth, an orphaned eight year old boy weathered his grief, gritted his teeth, and needing to get to his relatives, set out on bare feet until he got there.

This next week the church tells another powerful story about how much God loves us. For love God created the earth and humanity. With love God watched humanity struggle to live up to its capacity for beauty, creativity and love; in fact, not infrequently, failing horribly and tragically to do so. God goes right into the midst of that struggle, embraces that failure and that struggle with both arms and whole heart in the person of Jesus, and carries us all from the cross to the resurrection, Good Friday to Easter Day.

Let us celebrate this story. It is a story about who we are just as this little boy's story is that of my family. It is the story through which all other stories are seen. It can tell us just how deeply we are loved, how we can fully embrace a less than ideal world, and to what height we can love, empowered and emboldened by the Spirit.  

Have a blessed week,
Father John+