STORIES

It was a nice surprise to be asked if I needed some help in the yard.  Of course I said yes sure come on over.

 

Nice to have some help in the garden!

Thanks Carol and Panteli!

Also nice to have Carol walk Haiti over to the park with me.

Dad very tired today.  An upset stomach too.

Haiti very sad after everyone leaves.

Me having trouble sleeping .  Old age!

Until you actually see and hear and feel the ocean it is hard for a young prairie girl to even imagine what  power those huge waves have and far you can see across them.

From ancient times people made us stories about God usually a God seen in nature.  Wild and angry and powerful and beyond belief.
Jesus came to tell us the true stories that as I have allowed them to be woven into my life have given me courage and faith and hope in the knowledge that I am worthy and that I am loved.  I was fortunate to hear many stories about Jesus as a child and see movies at my church about his life and crucifixion.  He was real and I had that child like  faith that I could pray and He would hear.


The stories that Jesus told were so real and so practical.  One should not build a faith on wild and crazy stories of fear and conquering others by words or by fighting, but on a steady foundation of the beauty and joy of holiness.

I remember stories of glass houses and one should not throw stones; or planting seeds that only some grew and some did not.

I have thought a lot about the little nun, whose name was Louise and even though she was a little senile her smile and her gentleness was a story her life still told.

I think of my own dad who told every one he was in the nursing home as a spy for his son who was a Mountie.  He had to make sure things were done properly and because of this he talked to other people who he accepted and they accepted him.

Truth is not always straightforward but is held in tension.

"A small snail was climbing up a cherry tree while all the sparrows laughed and teased him.  Hey stupid they said don't you know there are no cherries on that tree.  The little fellow did not stop but replied that there would be when he got there."

The main function of the story is to deepen awareness of the human condition and to remind us how very alike we are in our humanness.

"There are two kinds of stories: some tell how it was, and others reveal how it is."

"Over the entrance to Yal Vashem, Israel's memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust, is inscribed into the stone an aphorism to the Bael Skem Tov:
Exile comes from forgetting.
Memory is the source of our redemption."

We can never really forget but we can forgive.