"All that we are is story", according to late Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese. "From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we're here; you, me, us together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship--we change the world, one story at a time..."
The quote above is from a book by Edith and Neil von Gunten which we have been discussing in our adult education class at church.
The more I think about that quote, the more it makes sense to me, especially in light of our family just having lost someone very close to us (my partner of 55 years, the father of our daughters, and the grandfather of our eight grandchildren). We tell each other stories, and we delight in them, because it is what we have left of him. We can no longer touch him, or see him or hear him, but we remember...and we share our memories. We look at old diary entries, we read old letters, look at pictures...anything to bring his memory back to us.
December is a celebratory month. The celebration is about someone who is no longer with us, physically. His life on earth ended over two thousand years ago but the stories about him have not died!
What stories do you think people might share about you when you are no longer on this earth?
Wishing everyone a Christmas filled with joy, laughter, tears and stories
