Let Me Tell You a Story (Things I Got from Mom)

A professor once made the statement: "If you say you have a story, everybody will start listening." Whether the audience continues to listen depends on whether the story is any good. But ears perk up for, "Let me tell you a story."

So, let me tell you several stories about things Mom did when I was growing up:

I like to depict my brother, Tim, and I as semi-wild street hooligans--since we spent so much time barefoot, outside, and forming our own brand of 5th-grade martial law in conjunction with the other neighborhood kids. When Mom was tired of "She stuck her tongue out at me!" and "He hit me!" she would boot us into the fresh air, where we settled disputes with a jury of our peers (or sticks and rocks).

We rode in a bicycle gang, smoked candy cigarettes, wiped the blood off our knees with leaves, and threatened to call our dads if an "enemy" from another neighborhood tried to breach the permimeter of our territory. In truth, I probably owe much of the fact that Tim and I didn't become one of those socially-inept homeschoolers to our "secondary education" with the other barefoot punks on the block.

But, that said, my mother wasn't content to let our grammar suffer, or to watch her children take up a more serious brand of smoking anytime soon. She was a teacher--gosh darn it--and she was going to teach us something. And the day she referenced Stuart Little, with no comprehension from her two darlings, helped make up her mind.

"You don't know Stuart Little? He's a mouse, guys!...Well, not a mouse. He's a boy who looks exactly like a mouse."

(blank stares)

"He has human parents and everything."

(no response)

"One day he even gets caught in the curtains...and, oh, forget it. We're going to the library."

I was an early reader and probably could have read Stuart Little myself. But Mom made it a night-time ritual to read several chapters aloud, and sometimes, when we were lucky, she would read during the afternoon while she nursed the baby. When the story was over, I enjoyed a feeling of closure that was both satisfying and disappointing. Every good story leaves you wanting more. But I was in luck since Mom borrowed Charlotte's Web after returning Stuart. (That's right all you movie watchers. The films had nothing to do with eachother, but did you know E.B. White wrote both of the books? Thanks for the info, Mom!)

We read all summer--well, Mom read, and we listened enthralled. Even my "ADHD" brother closed his eyes and pictured the panicked Mrs. Little, searching for Stuart while he was missing, and the evil cat intent on having his master for dinner... And I got a little misty-eyed at the thought of a tiny pig being drowned in the river by Fern's daddy. (Spoiler: The pig is spared...several times, as it were.) It was such a peaceful, entertaining, and educational time, we read The Indian in the Cupboard series next--four books in all. And THEN we read the Boxcar Children, beginning to end. (Or rather, we read to somewhere in the middle of the series before discovering the library was missing one of the books, and we requested they order it to complete their collection. THEN we read to the end.)

I hear my mom at the daycare from time to time--when I say things like, "you just went potty, so lay back down and take your nap" or yesterday, when I swear she possessed my body and said, "I don't have to give you a reason for everything."

But, I had a flashback to the Summer of Books earlier this week, while I read to some of the kiddos in my class. As I said "the end" and one little girl removed her fingers from her mouth long enough to say "read another one" it occurred to me these stories easily could stay with my students forever...
Mom taught me to pause in the right places and to use different voices for different characters, (without distracting from the story). But, most importantly, she taught me that everyone likes a good story long before that professor told me so.

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Yesterday, while on the phone with Mom, she shared a different kind of story with me about a volunteer in the toddler room at church--who recently allowed a man she met on the internet to move in with her.
"I asked her if they were living together," Mom told me. "And, when she said 'yes,' I told her I needed her to step down as a volunteer, since her sin is not a grey area in the Bible."

Apparently, this lady grew angry immediately and began shouting at my mother:

"I just can't believe it! In a place where I'm supposed to be accepted, you're going to judge me?! It's none of your business what I do in my personal life, but Christians are the worst for judging people...etc, etc....I'm going to find a church that will accept my choices." And out she stormed.

Oh, tough one. If there is one thing of which Christians have been rightly accused in the past, it's being judgemental--unforgiving of sinners. And I wondered how my mom responded to this difficult issue. After all, there is a verse in the Bible that says, "Judge not lest you be judged."

But, when the lady contacted her again later, Mom calmly gave her explanation, "You probably will find a church that let's you continue to sin, but it will not be a Bible-following church. All of us mess up, and it's wrong for Christians to hold your past sins over your head. God hates this type of judgement. But when a supposed believer continues to cling to his sin--in the present time--then Christians have to make a judgement call. We have the Book of Rules, and there are specific guidelines for dealing with someone who blatantly ignores those rules--they are to be judged by the leadership. And, when they still won't repent, they are asked to leave."

This explanation makes me proud. Christians are allowed to judge?! What's more--they're supposed to? From the perspective of a generation holding banners that read "It's my life" and "who are you to get involved?" the term "judge" is the ultimate offense. And many churches have begun to agree that judgment is bad and it's none of our business.

Here's the rub: no innocent person ever subscribes to a don't-judge-me defense.

When you're innocent, you're free to deny the accusations. Or, a guilty person may realize their mistakes and FIX them--rendering them "innocent" yet again in the eyes of God. But only a sinner, trapped in a corner, would turn the blame toward the whistle blower instead of repenting.

Consider, no defense lawyer in his right mind would appeal the jury with a speech beginning, "None of you were directly affected by my client's murders--so it really is none of your business. Besides, all of you have made mistakes before. Who are you to judge?" The answer is, the jury of American peers was created to judge, and the church has a responsibility to issue a verdict to its own members, too. Christians should not tolerate selfish, hard-hearted sin any more than our society tolerates its own rule-breakers.

And I learned that from my mom.