I am going to admit this out loud: when I showed up at Mass that Christmas Eve that year and I saw who the homilist was, I almost uttered a profanity in Church. This dear priest had a very bad habit of telling the same exact story every single Christmas Eve ... and it is horrible. Oh, he meant well. But the result was not what he was striving for ... kind of like biting into a tasty-looking pink watermelon slice only to find out that it had gone south, quite far south, and you now have that taste stuck in your mouth. Everything that comes after it, no matter how great, still has that hint of spoilage lingering. Yeah, okay, so I will tell you the story - apparently you, too, really want to be scarred for life.
One Christmas Eve a family prepared for their annual gift exchange. The year had been lean, the father had been out of work, and the mother tried to manage to keep the household mood up as best as she could despite their financial worries. The small daughter, perhaps five years old or so, had help from her mother in wrapping the box which held her gift for her father. In my mind, it was the size of a case of paper reams. She walked it over proudly to her dad and smiled, presenting it to him. He was puzzled, and began to open it. First the ribbon and bow came off, then the wrapping paper was taken back he opened the box and looked inside with a grimace. Anger moved across his face. He shouted at her: "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? WHAT KIND OF A PRESENT IS THIS? THE BOX IS EMPTY!" Tears filled her sweet eyes, her cherub like lips quivered and she stammered, "No, Daddy, it's not empty..." He retorted, "IT IS EMPTY! AND THIS IS VERY BAD FOR YOU TO DO THIS!" She tucked her chin to her chest and muttered softly, "Oh, Daddy, it is not empty. It is filled with love … just for you."
See. I told you it was horrible. Even though he used it as a springboard to talk about how God's love is often not packaged as we would like it to be - from a baby in a manger cradled by a migrant Israeli couple, to all the other ways God comes to bring love in His strange ways, you still feel the bite of that story. It makes me feel the way I did when I watched The Waltons' Christmas episode on tv reruns and their Christmas was so poor they were given "charity" gifts from missionaries. Little Elizabeth Walton received the doll she wanted, albeit it was broken. What is the good of a broken doll? The child was heartbroken, as was I. It made the missionaries look like jerks too, for which I take offense.
So I tell you this because in homilies, sometimes a story can make-or-break the whole homily. If the story is not great and doesn't make people react positively - if it lacks punch or purpose, do not tell it. I am a self-proclaimed champion story-teller. I have sat at the feet of Master Storytellers in my youth. Even my mother would probably admit that I can wind a good yarn. A good story is like ...
A good story is like the hug of a friend. It wraps around your heart and makes you feel warm. In doing so, it has engaged trust and opened the ears of the person's heart to hear more ...
A good story can be a shock to your system when you've stopped listening. My Dad's Uncle Vincent was a story-teller extraordinaire. When his car pulled into our driveway for a Sunday visit, I knew that the fun was afoot. One story he loved to tell was about the hitchhiker traveling through Pennsylvania. It was night and he stopped at a farm for lodging. The farmer said to him, "Sure you can stay with us but we are poor and have no extra furniture. You will have to share the bed with my daughter Beulah. But no funny-business." And the traveler slid into the bed, making sure to turn his Ashtabula. - what a riotous laugh from Uncle Vince, and me, at that story. My mother gave him the look and some sort of an expected motherly admonishment. Almost 40 years later, I cannot think of Uncle Vince without remembering the Ashtabula, Pennsylvania, story.
A good story can make you take account of your own chickens, so to speak. In a prior blog I shared about picking up a woman who was hitchhiking. I was at a point in my life where I was trying to find a job that utilized my education and talents and was feeling frustrated. She didn't know that. As I drove her to her location, and asked her if she worked, she said she was a dancer once, (and I don't mean ballet) and they threw a chair at her. Wow. That's a whole new level of feeling bad about yourself. I asked her if she would consider maybe working a cash register at a local drug store. She said she only had a sixth grade education, and wasn't very good at math. The long and the short of that encounter was I walked away feeling like I should be a little more grateful for the amazing education I was paying for because it would eventually open some doors for me.
A good story can make you see from a different perspective. My friend Br. Tony is a Franciscan missionary in Zambia. He sent me a video tape tour of the mission so I could see what life is like there. He mentioned a water monitor at the fish pond. I was thinking it was some sort of measuring tool for plumbing the depths of the pond. Um, wrong. Not until I saw him hold the water monitor around the widest part of it's belly, with it's four legs flailing did I realize it is some sort of African lizard. Rhetorical question: why is it when homilists preach on Luke 15, the Prodigal Son story, the immediate move is to make us consider how WE are like the Prodigal Son, or how WE are like the Elder Self-Righteous Son? Why not cast WE the People in the role of the Generous Father - even though we typically assign the Almighty to that role, we could step in for a moment to see how it transforms the way we do business, no? A different perspective?
But let us not allow our stories and attention-grabbing jokes to pull us away from what the Homily should ALWAYS be about - The Fantastic Story of the Love of God. Because, frankly, if you don't know how to tell THAT story, you will never be able to reach people for Christ, change lives, and bring healing and forgiveness.
The Story Worth Telling cannot be told most effectively in the third-person. You have to have experienced the goodness of God to be able to make the point, otherwise you are just another encyclopedia salesman selling something old that no one is sure they really need. Here's what I mean. I want to tell you the story of one of the happiest days of my life:
It was December 31, over ten years ago, and the approximate one year anniversary of buying my rear-wheel drive Isuzu Rodeo. The vehicle had turned out to be great fun, even though it was a stick shift and spun me in a circle one day when I got off the Brighton Avenue exit in snow. I was told by someone who knew, that I should always park it in gear. I tended to want to put it in neutral, kind of the way some people live. But I forced myself to park it in gear after being told. That morning, as I was getting ready to go to work, I had my silver-factored chocolate lab on a leash in my left hand. With my right hand I opened the driver's side door and put my foot on the clutch and started the ignition. If the vehicle was in Neutral it would have been better ... yeah, that much I know now, because when I lifted my right foot from the clutch - remember I was only half-in the seat - the vehicle lurched forward. I let go of the dog, who ran down to the creek. The vehicle began rolling straight out the driveway to the road - I could not let that happen - if only I could jump in and shut it off! I reached for the steering wheel to pull myself in. Only what happened was the wheel turned left; I remained OUTSIDE THE VEHICLE and now it was rolling across the grass toward the fence. I thought, "IF I just touch the side of it, it should stop rolling." Nope. It was in gear. The rear wheel drive was pushing it across the lawn. With the slightest touch from my hands on the vehicle, I fell on my back and watched the front driver's side wheel roll by as my left leg was now UNDER the vehicle ... which ran over the calf of my leg (and yes, I still have trouble to this day with that leg). My right leg had pulled out in time somehow. The driver's side mirror got snagged on a tree branch that kept the vehicle stuck in one spot, rear wheels spinning a rut into the lawn. I was dazed. I went to the right side of the vehicle to open it since the left door was now pinned-shut by the tree. I forgot that I had locked the right door earlier when I put a lunch for work on the seat. I turned and walked to the house, wondering if my leg was broken, but still relentlessly going for the spare key. I picked the phone off the wall in the kitchen just as it rang with a friend who called to wish me Happy New Year - he never called me before then, or since - I asked him to call and send my friend Mary to me to help. I went out, shut off the vehicle, grabbed the flip-phone from the glove compartment and called 9-1-1. As I talked to the operator I changed my mind and said, "No, I probably don't need help because I walked on it, and I'm talking to you. I think I'm okay." She told me I was in shock and to stay-put until help arrived. The town volunteer fire department came. I remember one of the guys wanted to cut my pant leg to assess my leg for damage. I stopped him and just rolled the pantleg up... and wished I had listened to the voice in my head that morning that said, "perhaps I should shave my legs today?" Yikes. A news vehicle parked on the street - I yelled at him - "Nothing to see here! Go away!" Unconvinced, he left the scene. I declined the ambulance ride, "Save it for someone who is really hurt," not realizing that, indeed, I was REALLY hurt. My friend Mary drove me to the ER. She said, "Does it hurt really bad?" Nope. Actually it didn't hurt at all. Adrenaline is a marvelous thing while you've got it.
You wonder what I was thinking when I was on my back on the winter grass with my leg under the vehicle? I do remember. It was this: "If I live to tell this, it's going to be a great story. There had to have been angels involved in some way." I am grateful I can walk. I am grateful for my friend Mary who took care of me for a couple of weeks to make sure I didn't wander around the house needlessly shaking blood clots loose and killing myself. I am grateful because for the weeks I was out of work, I realized that I could never go back to working in a basement office with no windows and completely missing the glory of the world outside during the day. It was that accident that gave me the impetus to begin searching for a new step in my career path. And I found it.
There are a million points in that story that could be used - How we live in a semi-coma until an event shakes us out of our stupor; how so many little details fall into place to create one picture; how our perception of reality is often based in our unwarranted self-sufficiency; how, unless you know better, the advice of someone who thinks they know better can put you in a bad spot.... The list goes on. But in this story, I like to highlight that gratitude for so many little things - the first responders, my friends, my new motivation for getting a different job ... the list goes on. The price I paid, (sometimes my leg aches when the weather changes and sometimes it gets too tired at the end of the day) purchased a new outlook for me. And that was important... and probably worth it. All of the little things that get us where we need to go matter ...
If that was my homily, the title would be the same as the sign I have taped on my closet door, "All the little details of our life really do matter to God." It is upon reflection that we find the meaning of life's puzzling, and sometimes traumatic, events to us.
Now, go find a good story for yourself!
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