"I will tell you my dreams….will you promise to guard them well?…Everything is much more than it seems….There is power in these stories we tell….There is love in these secrets we tell." Claudia Schmidt, ‘Remember’

I have a friend who takes a vacation/retreat once a year with several friends. During this week the primary agenda is to be together and to tell their stories, to tell the others who they really are. I don’t mean just a half hour of a few choice tidbits of the triumphs of their success, the agony of their defeats. No. They spend the entire week focused on one or two people telling their whole story. All of it, the parts they are proud of, and those they’d rather not remember. The others are there to receive,to listen, to be present to the life of the other.

What an amazing concept! What must it be like to prepare to tell the story of who you are while others listen with true attention and care? What must it be like to hold the space where that story is being told, to allow yourself to be pulled into the true-life story of another?

It was my privilege to experience this kind of story telling at worship yesterday.During Lent,we have invited people in our worshiping community to share their spiritual journey, their story of faith. While yesterday’s life-story telling was condensed to a much shorter period of time than my friend’s retreat week, I was captured by the sacred nature of what it means to listen, to hold, to be present to the telling of a life. We sat in a circle as this person shared who they are, who they really are, how they have known God,and we held out our arms to receive. And in the telling and the listening, through the Spirit’s movement, we all became a part of this person’s story, because we have heard and received. The story telling becomes a sacrament of sorts…..an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It is a powerful act.It is a blessing.

Who knows you? I mean, who really knows you? May this day find you being known…. by another, and by the Holy. Perhaps someone is just waiting to hear the good news through your life.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down
and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my
path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word
is on my tongue, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and
lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139