Tenacious stories

Monday in the First Week of Lent

We have heard with our ears, O God, our forebears have told us,
the deeds you did in their days, in the days of old.
Psalm 44:1

The going is slow, not so much because there are so many boxes to sort through, but because I have to stop and linger over the items they contain. It is a complex undertaking, this cleaning out of the attic, a task I have set for myself this Lent.

I have enlisted my daughter’s help as she is home from college this week. And as we work, I realize that it is not so much the physical labor that I need help with, but the sorting. There are stories to tell. Sure, I need her to weigh in on what is important to her, what she wants to keep, what she is good with passing on. But more significant is the encounter with heritage. Stories from her childhood, and mine, and her grandparents.

In our faith community too, I find life in the stories we pass along to one another. Hearing about the current professional endeavors of a young man I remember as a rambunctious kindergartener. Learning through a funeral eulogy of how a venerable elder first fell in love. And we gather around even more ancient stories, the sacred texts of scripture, our heritage of loving-kindness, forgiveness, grace, hope, redemption.

I pull out an old photo album, run my finger along faces I have not thought about for a very long time, and ponder the tenacious threads that connect us over time.