There's A Story in There, Somewhere

What a beautiful sun-filled day!  I will be getting out and about in it later but this morning I am easing into the day.  I also need to do some homework because Bible study starts this week.  Last night after returning from a birthday dinner celebrating Peggy at Jimmy Changa's, I finished the book that I started on Sunday.  Excellent read and well done memoir.  Haven't decided on the next book but a Wendy Wax book went to the box going to Bookworms later this week.  Up to this point I have enjoyed her books but this last book, I never could get into it.  Life is too short to read books just for the sake of reading them to get rid of them.  It's gone.

At dinner last night we talked about the use of "story" particularly in the Christian arena.  The first real use I ever noticed was Donald Miller's Storyline website and conferences from several years ago.  Since then it has almost become Pray of Jabez worthy because many retreats, conferences, and books are all about story these days.  Our narratives.  It is a worthy subject matter and there are different ways to approach "story."  What is kind of sad is, you'd think as Christians we would be a little more creative in our approach instead of riding what is popular in culture and in church world.  We serve a creative, grand creator God and for years it seemed like all church world could do was copy Starbucks.  My friend who is in communications says the mantra of the industry is steal from the best.  We don't have to steal from God, He gives generously if we only ask.  Will I stop going to things because the theme is story?  No, not at all but it feels like it should be at the end of its run.  Now, back in the day, as a kid, I could have used all this knowledge about my story because back then telling a story wasn't a cool thing, it kind of aligned with telling a lie.  Nancy!  Are you telling a story or the truth?  Hmm...kind of a story with some truth in it.

Speaking of rather in my case, writing of story, my cousin Lois called while we were driving to NC with an interesting story.  The back story to this is, several years ago while having dinner with my parents, I mentioned how fortuitous it was that my grandfather and his brothers had left the coal mines of Kentucky and ventured out for other work than in the mines.  Two settled in Indiana and two settled in Illinois.  It was then my father told us a story I had never heard before, it wasn't fortuitous leaving, it was leaving to escape the law for killing a man in the coal mines.  My grandfather and his brothers ran with a gang, the possum gang (you'd think they could have come up with a better name for their organization), that beat up men who were unkind and mean to their families.  There was a multi-time repeater of abuse, so they decided to take him in mine and give him a little electric shock from the coal train line, only they didn't give him just a little shock...they gave him too much and it resulted in his death.  The story as I know is their lawyer told them to get the heck out of Kentucky because he didn't think the law would go after them out of state because the truth be told, nobody liked the man they killed.  Now, I didn't know to believe this story or not.  I began to ask cousins if they had ever heard of this and no one had.  My brother talked with Aunt Amy, the brother's sister, and she said the story was not true.  So, we all chalked it up to another wild story from my father....until Lois called.  Her brother Mark had dinner with our cousin David and his wife in our home town and David mentioned that a second cousin of ours, his first cousin...there will be a test at the end of this post, Ronald Doss had written a book about the brothers who killed a man in the coal mines and got away with it.  Mark is going to contact Ronald and I have looked him up and think I might have a phone number for him.  Now, just getting the courage to call and talk to someone I only remember from when I was a child since there is about fourteen years difference between us.  I would LOVE to read his book!  Now there is a story!  His story is of three brothers, so it would be interesting to know who the three are.

Well, this is my story, I have no song...this post of story took all the day long.  Not really, I did start in the morning but it is now late afternoon and needed to finish this up.