Kafka in the Can... Little Boy In the Ocean...

I was wondering this morning why guys read in the bathroom. I know that some women read in the bathroom and some men don't read there, but most every guy I know reads "in the can" as one guy puts it.

Nope, I don't know why. But I remember that my introduction to Kafka and Freud and a whole world of literature was opened up to me in the bathroom at my parent's house when I was a kid because my dad would leave his books lying around and I'd pick them up and try to figure out why a guy wakes up as a cockroach...pretty heady stuff for a ten year old.

Truth is I don't remember a lot of those books - my dad read philosophy, psychology, and a lot of "informational" stuff - but I remember the plight of poor Gregor Samsa who could no longer communicate with those around him and died a neglected and starved...um...bug...

Stories are powerful. I didn't understand what Kafka was getting at when I was ten (not sure I get all of it today - I just read there's something like 130 different interpretations of The Metamorphosis), but I was caught up in the story.

I don't remember it, but I can picture it: when I was five my family lived on a little island called Shelter Island kind of off the East end of Long Island. We were playing at the beach one day and I was afraid of the ocean. I mean, it's pretty big and, well, I was five and I was pretty small. My dad carried me out into the water assuring me that I was safe. "I won't drop you," he said. "I've got you. I promise I won't drop you." Um - he dropped me. Now, the water was only about two feet deep - but I went down on my bottom and sputtered and flailed and he picked me up and whisked me back to shore.

I don't remember experiencing that, but I have a clear memory of it that has been handed on to me by my family. My mom has told me the story a dozen times or more. It's real to me.

Story is pervasive and persuasive. Doctrines are hard to hang our hats on "I believe in God the Father...the Son...the Holy Spirit." But stories are easy to remember: Jesus came to John to be baptized. John said, "You should baptize me - but you come to me for baptism." Jesus said, "This is the way it should be for now. This is the right thing to do." John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River and when Jesus came up out of the water the Holy Spirit descended and a voice spoke from heaven saying, "This is my son, who I love, with whom I am well pleased." [OR: the Bill Beatty paraphrase "This is my boy, I love him, and I'm so happy with him."]

Okay, that's how I remember the story - I checked, I'm missing some details. But I remember the story. And while we may memorize verses that give us important information ("We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose" "this is how we know God loves us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" "For God so loved the world..." "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God..."), the STORIES stick.

I can't communicate without telling stories. Everything has to be relatable for me to remember it. The truth is, with all those verses I've memorized, I have a story that sticks - being a teenager trying to understand why God would allow my father to get leukemia and reading "All things work together for good...". My kindergarten Sunday School teacher who taught us "For God so loved the world..." My High School Sunday School teacher who showed me what "this his how we know God loves us..." really means.

The stories stick - and so does the meaning that I attach to the stories.

I was talking about integrity to the kids in the youth group and I started telling a story and one of the girls said, "Is this the cavatini story again?" She had heard not only the story before, but she remembered the point. I was teaching Bible study with the kids once and we came to Andrew and one of the girls said, "You did a sermon once where you said that Andrew's gift was that he brought people to Jesus - that ll the stories in the Bible about him are about how he brought people to Jesus." And so the point stuck.

I think that people want to hear OUR stories. How God interacts and invades and informs our lives. I try to see a lot of what happens through those lenses - even the really silly, the mundane, the shockingly tragic. How has God moved and worked and transformed my story?