Tell Us Your Story

I've been reading Leonard Sweet's Out of the Question...Into the Mystery. He said some interesting things that went along with my previous entry regarding God grafting me into His story. His words, however, focus on the fact that we can encounter God through other people's stories.

"We are not called to fit someone else into our own story, but to encounter and experience the ways that God is in the other person's story...The critical test of any faith thus becomes 'does it make space for otherness?'...The key to evangelism is to be receivers of others--ushers to the Other, not users of others. In receiving others, we enter into their world of abundant otherness--their experiences, their thought patterns, their stories."

Then he pens this amazing sentence: "One can receive others and celebrate their stories without buying into their every perspective."

Wow! What a healthy, whole, balanced, right-on-the-money perspective!!!

One of my favorite Merle Haggard songs is "Yesterday's Wine." It's about strangers finding community with one another in a bar. After a stranger shares some initial pleasantries with some of the "regulars," the regulars invite the stranger to "come sit down here with us and tell us your story."

God, I LOVE that line. Why? Because I long for someone to invite me to sit down and listen interestedly to my story. I don't feel like anyone knows me until they hear my story, and I don't really know someone until I hear their story.

I'm so guilty of asking people questions, not to try to get to know them, but to "peg" them. Then, I can judge them. What a shitty way to treat people! I'm starting to believe that all any of us really want is to be heard, understood, and accepted. Like Sweet--and Haggard--says, we do this by sharing with one another our stories.