Family Gathering Story Time – How to share a bit more with those closest to you
Again this Thanksgiving we hosted a gathering of 20-plus family and friends for conversation, eating, giving thanks and sharing stories. It has been my conviction for a few years that with a bit of gentle prodding and an advance heads-up, most of us wouldn’t mind sharing more of our personal stories. And that’s been my approach for three years in a row and the results have been heart-warming, awkward and profound.
Last year, we each shared something that we were thankful for from each decade of our lives. Several folks came with notes in hand from which to share memories going back 20-70 years! New dimensions of our past and each other were realized and appreciated. Lots of tears were shed and there were impromptu hugs and pats on the back. You can read about the experience in my post called “Epic Thanksgiving” from 12 months ago.
The assignment this year was to share more of a story or scene that gave a snapshot of a day or event. Something significant that made us thankful and appreciative of another person or group. My niece had been proposed to and became engaged in the past two months, so, I suggested to her and her fiancé that they might want to share about that day at the beach that some of us had heard snippets about, but didn’t know the whole story.
My sister led off with a story about being able to spend a lot of time with our grandfather while growing up and learning about life on a farm, grooming and riding horses and how she now cherishes lots of great memories.
That was followed by the aforementioned “popping the question at the beach” story from my niece and her betrothed. It was a great story with humor and drama and the loving interplay between siblings and parents.
And then guess what happened? All of the twenty-something kin started asking questions about how the married couples in the room met and got engaged. So, for the next hour we heard of the first encounters, secret crushes and eventual marriages of most everyone in the room.
Truly, these are the patchwork quilts of our lives that we see with new clarity as we hear our stories and those of our siblings, children and friends.
Last Sunday I wrote a note in my pocket memo book that simply said: Desire to be special. I don’t remember now what was being preached, but it triggered that thought in me. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, all of the temptations (and they were real) had something to do with Jesus giving into the desire to be spectacular or to do something spectacular, and to take a shortcut toward that recognition.
We all want to be seen. If you’ve seen the movie Avatar, you may remember the greeting by the Na’vi tribe members of “I see you” which meant that I see into you or I see who you really are. Perhaps it means I see more of you than meets the eye or I see your heart.
I can honestly say that as a result of our Thanksgiving story time I see more of who each of my family are. By knowing more of their story, I understand our connectedness with each other and with God’s Larger Story. I don’t share the Na’vi belief that God is all of us, but I do believe that God is at work in all of us and that the more I know of God the more I appreciate you and your story. I want to see you and the way I can see who you really are is through hearing your story.
Share your story and ask others to tell you their story. You’ll see differently.