Sacred Stories

The stories we read, and write, and tell our children matter. This season of bone chilling cold I have been snuggled in with some good ones. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is being marketed as Young Adult fiction but its a novel, a story and I think its an all grown up Jesus story. In a little town outside Munich a family takes in a litte girl who doesnt yet know she is an orphan, daughter of communists taken away in the early years of the reign of the Nazi party. She walks on streets where Jewish families have disappeared. She and her friend are enrolled in the obligatory Hitler Youth groups but resist indoctrination. She and her friend watch as lines of men and women are marched through town on their way to The Camp and she offers a subversive cup of water. The story sings the song of the power of words, the power of kindness, the power of Love.



Lacuna the latest from Barbara Kingsolver - in my opinion the leading contemporary Great American Novelist - is set in Washington DC and Mexico City and Asheville North Carolina in the years before and after WWII. The protagonist comes of age amid Communists and Newspapermen and the household of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo and learns to write stories of empire for an Empire that twists its own history. Kindness and generosity are the only way in which greatness is manifest Living in Casa Trotsky under virtual house arrest, with 24 hour guards and care for who is admitted, Trotsky finally opens the door to the supposed friend who will kill him. "The world revolution waits, while Trotsky gives his full attention to a shallow-thinking but hopeful fellow, because nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness" The protaganist's own words are twisted back as he becomes one of those caught up in the investigations of the House Unamerican Activities Committee. How easy it is for fear to overcome the joyful solidarity that connects us to one another. Coming of age as a person who sees the truth and tells the truth, generously and with kindness, is difficult and essetial for the mending of creation.


Some of us are movie people rather than book people. Here is a take on Avatar the big movie of the season. http://w.religiondispatches.org/blog/mediaculture/2168/avatar Jesus sits with the repo men and tax collectors - people who do the dirty work of the Big Money folk, the Rulers of the Empire. Jesus sits with the dispossessed, folks who have lost their family farms, homes and jobs when they couldnt pay the mortgage. What stories might Jesus tell about the fight over unobtanium or oil?



What stories are you feeding your soul, and the souls of the children in your life?