Storytelling

This post is slightly unrelated to most of the others, but I thought this was an appropriate place to put it.

When I tell people why I love storytelling it ALWAYS involves my dad. Every night when I was young, after my mom had allready tucked me in I would say, "Daddy...tell me a story about when you were a little boy."

And he would (of course). It seemed that there were always new stories. Some adventures, some funny, some painful, some scary but all about his life. All great.

He is a storyteller, he can't help it. He is how I fell in love with stories. For me they were stories of a different world. A world with hand made tortillas, and La Llorona (on of the many Mexican boogie men characters), there was a tree with a rope swing that was just a little to close to the barbed wire fence. Where my dad wore tailored polyester pants. This world was magic as the world of any story is. He opened up my passion for cultures and people and of course, their stories.

Yesterday morning I sat down to read my bible and I thought, "daddy, tell me a story." It struck me, I didn't do it on purpose or to be funny. It came so naturally to look up and ask this. Here He tells me stories from years past. Some scary, some stern, some funny, always teaching. Stories teach, Jesus knew that, he often taught in parables.

Like my Daddy told me stories. God, my other daddy, tells me stories.

Tell your stories, the good and the bad. Who knows who they will inspire, or teach, or just make laugh. It is all valuable. All good.

Listen to the stories God wants to tell you, in his word and in the words and lives of others. All good.

Enjoy them.

You Are The Plan

I seem to be getting into a habit of only posting every 2 dramas. Silly Dania. This drama happened March 3rd, 2009.

You Are the Plan
Paraphrase of Deuteronomy 11:1-2 for dramatic reading.
(based on the NIV and The Message translations)

Bryce: So love God, your God; guard well his laws, decrees and requirements; obey his commandments for the rest of time.

Sue: Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God; his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm.

Dania: They didn't see the acts, didn't experience the discipline, didn't marvel at his greatness in the way he displayed his power in the miracles and sings that he let loose in Egypt on Pharaoh and all his land,

Randy: the way he took out the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, burying them in the waters of the Red Sea as they pursued you. God drowned them. And you're standing here alive today.

Bryce: Nor was it your children who saw how God took care of you in the wilderness. Yes, it was you--your eyes--that saw all these great things the LORD had done.

Sue: So its you who are in charge of keeping the commandment that I give you today, so that you and the next generation may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to posses. And so you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors and their children, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Randy: The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it yourself like a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to is a land of mountains and valleys that drink rain from heaven. It is the land that God, your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it.

Dania: So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today, love God, your God, and serve him with everything you have within you, he'll take charge of sending the rain at the right time, so you can harvest. He will make sure there is grass for your animals. You'll have plenty to eat.

Bryce: Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Fix them in your mind and hearts. Teach them to your children.

Sue: Talk about them wherever you are,

Randy: sitting at home or walking in the street;

Dania: talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into your bed at night.

Bryce: So that you'll live a long time, you and your children, in the place God promised you for as long as there is sky over the Earth.

This drama came during a series on "The Next Generation". One major point was teaching them what happened in the past. God does so many amazing things in our lives. How is the next generation going to have any idea of the power of God if we don't tell them what we have seen? What he has done? How much stronger could their belief be if they new what God has done instead of waiting to learn only from themselves?
I just read about how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus didn't keep him from dying in the first place. But raised him from the dead so that others might believe. If everyone who saw this happen kept it to themselves, or Jesus did it in secret, there would be a large group of people who didn't believe.