One of my favorite writers is storyteller/essayist Robert Fulghum, of “Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” fame.  I label him as a storyteller/essayist, which fits his writing from a reader’s perspective, but it might be more accurate to describe him as a photographer with a pen.  I’m a reader; so for me, sometimes a thousand words are worth more than any picture.  A picture fills up the page.  The medium of the written word, on the other hand, consists of both substance and space.  There’s room on the page between the lines for me.

When Fulghum goes for a walk and writes about it as well as he does, I end up just a step or two behind, looking over his shoulder at the world as he experienced it that day.  Sometimes, when I’m not in a hurry, I wander down a side street or two, prompted by something in his account to revisit a more personal recollection.  He’s a considerate tour guide when this happens, waiting patiently for me to catch up and continue our journey, right where my index finger came to rest when I closed my eyes and wandered away.

One of the reasons I enjoy his perspective (and that of his literary peers) is that my own recollections are similar.  Small events serve as nails upon which I hang larger thoughts.  The principles by which I live are important to me, but they’re not abstract.  Most of my memories remain memorable because they’re connected to my beliefs, and vice versa.  I’ve forgotten much more than I remember (How can I possibly know this to be true?), but what does rattle around in my middle-aged brain is my code of conduct, preserved in the stories of the events that shaped me.

Let me make a confession at this point.  There’s a difference between a storyteller and a journalist.  My sister Marguerite, another of my favorite writers, is a journalist.  I considered the possibility, back when both of us had to figure out a way to go to college on someone else’s nickel.  It didn’t come to pass, possibly because their craft requires operating along the lines of Dragnet’s Joe Friday:  “Just the facts, Ma’am.”  Memories, mine included, are inherently flawed because they’re portraits and thus self-serving.  We polish them up over time, like trophies on a mantle.

The reason for this is obvious – a journalist is chasing the story, while a storyteller is part of it.  The journalist is a non-partisan bystander – the storyteller has an axe to grind.  We may not be heroes in all our tales, but we usually share in the heroism.  Our listeners and readers ought to be outraged by the liberties we take, but there is a gentleman’s agreement in effect:  I’ll listen to your stories (and be moved by them) if you’ll listen to mine.  And in the exchange we are lifted above and beyond and sometimes even break free of colder realities that hold us prisoner.

A story is a light at the end of the tunnel, offering a way out whatever darkness surrounds us.  It is a slice of life, offered in friendship to a reader with a hunger for hope.  It is concrete, like a beef patty on a bun, founded in facts.  It can be a bit tasteless, without embellishment.  The personal touches that become attached to it over time are condiments, each adding a flavor.  This is not to suggest that I intend to create fiction when I write, only to admit that memories and the recounting of them has a personal and sometimes semi-fictional interpretive element.

I visited over the weekend with a family I pastored ten years ago, for nearly ten years.  We’re part of one another’s family histories on a multi-generational level, three generations on my side and four on theirs.  I coached one of their sons, married another and buried the child of a third.  They’ve been befriending a recently-widowed neighbor, relatively new to the area.  So they introduced us, by way of telling their stories about our shared lives.  I’ve told them, too, but they tasted different going into my ears than coming out of my mouth, new spice in a favorite dish.

This piece is something of a warning label, wordy by FDA standards.  I’m not sure how it ought to read.  WARNING:  THE CONTENTS OF THIS COLUMN ARE NOT WARRANTED TO BE FREE OF OCCASIONAL LIBERTIES, FACTUAL INACCURACIES, EMBARASSING OMISSIONS OR THE EFFECTS OF AGING, NONE OF WHICH ARE INTENDED TO INJURE OR MISLEAD.  I try to be careful and truthful, which is why I know and admit that I may come up short when caught up in the story.  How big was the fish?

I mentioned being encouraged to do some more regular writing by folks who sit in on Bible classes I teach in an earlier blog.  There are four bloggers on our pastoral staff, me being newest to the forum, so I checked out the others on my way to getting underway.  I’m longer-winded than the others up to now, which is a reflection of having a captive audience most of the time; and I write less often, which is a reflection of my love of the written word and tendency not to do it in a hurry.  Writing for me is a discovery process – I don’t always know what’s in my head until it appears on the page.

It’s a bit like dropping a glob of oil paint on a canvas for me.  Once it’s out in the open, I have to work with it, move it around and find its shape.  An artist from the Northwest, who specialized in carving animals native to his region, once described his art this way:  “I look at the wood until I can see the otter inside – then I take away what is not the otter.”  Some things I play with for quite some time – I’m looking for what’s in there.  Other things leap out on their own.  I’m never sure which it might be when I sit down to write.  That’s why I treasure it – it’s an adventure.

So, for however long this lasts, let me make at least one promise.  I promise that if I’m not writing, it will be because, for one reason or another, I don’t have anything ready to say.  I’ll try not to waste your time — which is a precious trust — or mine.  When I went to Bible college, one of my favorite teachers, who also happened to be the college president, always concluded his classes by looking at us and saying, “Thank you.”  I’ve been doing it ever since.  People who listen to what we say or read what we write are honoring us.  Thank you.