At my Church in Oklahoma, we leave the pulpit open every Memorial Day and Thanksgiving . There's not a specific plan for the service. People stand up and take a rock from one pile, and as they share a story, they roll the stone around in their hands. On Thanksgiving, people speak of freedom, family, little miracles, healing, and other blessings. Memorial Day is similar, we share our "God-sightings" and when we have finished, we place the stone on a pile, memory stones, our "witness heap," and echo of ancient Hebrew traditions. You can tell a lot about a culture by its monuments. These are my memory stones.
Skipping stones is a family tradition. Raised near the stony Salmon and Sandy rivers, my father taught us early on how to find the smoothest, flattest stones and let them fly. Some days, the skipping would turn into an hour-long contest and "spelunking" extravaganza. ("Spelunking" being the art of throwing the largest rock for the sake of the largest splash). As we run, we too leave the ground, skipping forward into the sky, dancing across life's stream in a very brief display of beauty.
In Aberdeen, Scotland, stone bridges, walls and cathedrals go back as far as 1000 years, and many of them are still in use. I tried to walk on water once. I got wet. Another time my sister Elizabeth and I were exploring the very same Bear River, and we came to a place where we couldn't cross. In no hurry, we proceeded to throw large rocks until we could. These stones allow me to continue walking forward where before no path was visible, walking on water.
Not all of our memories and experiences are helpful or light. As I recall, the pilgrim of Pilgrim's Progress had a heavy pack of lies and experiences that had to be removed before going forward. A stone in a horse's hoof stops the forward journey. In Prydain, Taran, after removing a stone from a horse's hoof, asks a haughty prince, "What stone is your shoe?" Well, what of it? What weighs you down? We all have our doubts, the lies and memories that confuse us and weigh us down, that make us walk with a limp. Sometimes I think God gives me a lot of these to keep me from getting a big head. It's these jagged stones, these rough unpolished edges of life that Annie Dillard so gloriously describes that have kept me from writing a book until now. How can I write an ending? I'm only 24. How can I share in such a way that manages to encourage rather than weighs down, when the world is so weighty? Our own identities are very much glass houses, and throwing stones in such places is unadvisable as I understand it.
But I've been given this bag of stones. Some I've dropped and forgotten. Some heavy ones I've held onto far too long. Some were made to fly, to be given away. I'm not a boy who feels any deep sympathies for dirt. While it is beautiful and rich, places come and go, and have no worth in themselves. I am thus far a wanderer, but I carry with me a small bag of memory stones, of places and people and moments that have changed me. But I must travel light, especially with the prices of baggage fees these days. In my travels, I have come to the point where if I see someone who intrigues me, I force myself to try to start a conversation, even when I assume the person won't speak a language I speak. Because we have so much to learn from each other. So here I will let fly my stones. If I bruise you, please forgive me. Know that I throw in love. Sometimes, bruises are the way we learn best. Other times, my immaturity or lack of omniscence will blind me, and I will aim amiss. I'm a pilgrim. I offer no five steps, no systematic theology, only my stories. I hope that you too, will join me in seeking what is beautiful, true, and broken in this world.
