Bedtime story

Monday, August 31, 2020                  (today’s lectionary)

Bedtime story

Once upon a time a young farm family ended their evenings in the winter beside the kitchen stove with a story from Little Visits With God, Lutheran tales for kids written by writers at Concordia Publishing House (and my Aunt Mary was one of them).

When I came to you, brothers and sisters,

I did not come with fancy words or wisdom.

One night when he was about five, the oldest wanted to tell the story.

“And Little Orphant Annie, she looked hard at the chillen around the fire, and she leaned toward them, and her eyes were bugging out, and so were theirs, and she said, “Oh, yeah, chillens, the goblins’ll gitcha ef you don’t watch out!”

His mom should not have been surprised, because she had been reading poems to her kids, including “Little Orphant Annie” from The Golden Book of Poetry. He was reading along more than she knew, and the pictures captivated them both.

Your faith should not rest on human wisdom

But on the power of God.

His mom frowned as he looked for her approval. “Now you’ve probably scared your sister half to death! Before we go to bed, we must tell stories about Jesus.”

And Jesus came to Nazareth where he had grown up

And in the synagogue he took up the scroll of Isaiah and began to read.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me …”

OK, OK, OK, I have another one!

“Jesus was walking across the lake, and there were five thousand people on the shore, and he fed them all with five bread loaves and two fish that jumped into his arms while he was walking on the water, and then the disciples picked up everything that was left, and there was MORE afterwards than there was before. And Jesus went to sleep, and the disciples did too, and the five thousand people went to sleep, until they woke up the next day!”

My mother beamed.

And all spoke highly of him (for the moment at least)

And they were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

 *           *           *

Last night I spent the evening with Mom, and now she’s 98 and I’m 70, but we both remember the stories. I tucked her in at 9 pm. She pulled the covers up to her chin and she was cute and tiny there in bed, smiling up at me.

“Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story?”

“Of course!” And she closed her eyes to listen. So I told her the story I just told you, and when I got to the feeding of the 5000 she smiled and nodded her head. And then we should have prayed, but I forgot, but I won’t next time.

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Robert Munsch put all of this in another way, and you can listen to his story whenever you have time:

I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always,

As long as I’m living

My Mommy you’ll be.

*             *           *

This afternoon, if things work out and the creek don’t rise, Marc and Myranda and Margaret and I will celebrate birthdays (Marc’s today and Myranda’s last Sunday) with a crab fest, maybe even sitting outside and smelling the seaside breeze from the local Target parking lot. And I’ll bet there will be more left over than when we first began.

Can’t you hear the gulls crying in the ocean air, gliding above the waves?

“Look, there’s Jesus!”

 

(1 Corinthians 2, Psalm 119, Luke 4)

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