I write a lot. Every week, between sermon preparation, blog posts (for work), and bulletin announcements, including a personal piece called “From Ken’s Desk” I roll out something over three thousand finished words. Wrapped in those words are stories. Stories as sermon illustrations; stories drawing people into other bits of writing; personal stories from my life; stories buried in long and diverse pieces of text.
I’ve been thinking about those stories lately. Maybe its because of the funerals I’ve been involved with recently, or the visits I’ve made to senior members in the congregation. So much history is lost in each funeral, and memory lost in declining years. Its not so much the big things that are lost. Some of them are written down in the fronts of family bibles, carried in the family psyche from one generation to the next. The stories I’m thinking about are the mundane ones, the ones that put sounds, and smells, and colour on the big stories.
I’m hoping that saving these stories will help my kids and grandkids (maybe my nieces and nephews) know a little more about where they came from from these ordinary stories, stories that I likely wouldn’t think to share, and certainly wouldn’t likely share with all of them. These are stories that come to mind when working on something else, stories that don’t sit at the front of my mind all the time, stories about ordinary life.
There are, of course, others involved in these stories who might read these stories and find them different from the way they experienced the story. Does this mean that I’ve got the story wrong? No, it just means that my perspective was different and maybe the parts of the experience stayed with me when other parts didn’t. So, I’d welcome additions to the stories, filling in the corners I miss. I have to admit, memory is not my strong suit.
The Farmer goes to Seminary 