This week one of my colleagues made this statement:"One definition of community can be ‘the people who know my story and the people whose stories I know’." This definition implies so much….courage,trust,listening,giving and taking time,commitment,investment, being truly present….and more. Who knows your story? Whose story do you know?

Growing up in a small town, I knew many people’s story and they knew mine.Leaving that town, moving far away, my story has changed and so have I. But those people know my early story…where I came from, how my life was shaped. I believe that kind of  "knowing" kept me honest and out of trouble many times and shaped how I see the world. Wherever I have gone, I have always tried to create that kind of community…where my story was known and where I knew the story of others. For me, it is a deep human desire to be known and to have the privilege of being witness to the lives of those I have come to love.

Over the last twenty-four hours we have been witness to mothers, fathers, siblings and friends telling the stories of those killed at Virginia Tech. We are not their immediate community.We have not really been invested in their lives.  But through technology we are now witnesses to their stories, their triumphs, their tragedy and have been, in a strange way, allowed into their community. It is a fact of the times in which we live….we are connected and privy to the lives of others in ways foreign to us just a few short years ago.  How we hold that privilege is up to us.

I am choosing to listen with intention and, I hope, compassion.  I look at their pictures and become a witness to those who are telling their story, knowing that it is only tragedy that allowed me a glimpse into who they were, it is only this terrible thing that has happened that has allowed me into their community.

Jesus told stories so the early followers would learn about how the Holy One moves and has being in the world. Our faith has depended on our telling our stories….and our hearing the stories of others. This storytelling has been what has held us together, what has helped us to continue to be God’s people in the world, what has healed us and what has brought hope to our hearts and conviction to our living.

It is my prayer that in being witness to the stories of those who were killed, the world will learn and heal and be restored. May God bless those who tell the stories…………