Dear Ones:

“Everybody is a story”—words from the spiritual writer and psycho-oncologist, Rachel Naomi Remen, though the concept is not unique to her. These words inspire me every Sunday morning to say “each of our lives tells a story worth knowing.” These words keep coming to me as I begin contemplating our January ministry theme, story. I first encountered them in seminary. Remen’s first book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal, was on the syllabus for a class on pastoral care. Many of you have read this book. And even I you haven’t, you’ve heard me quote passages from it regularly over the years.

Remen struggled with her training as a physician, including the way she was taught to view illness. There was always a medical way to treat illness, grounded in the latest scientific research, or in the latest consensus among doctors about best practices. (Good so far.) Practicing medicine required objectivity, required that she maintain a certain emotional distance from her patients. (Not as good.) She noticed over the years that in practicing medicine as she was trained, she was missing the meaning

her patients were attaching to their illnesses. She wasn’t hearing their stories.

I’m not giving away the ending of the book by telling you Remen discovered that listening to her patients’ stories helped in the healing process. Yes, medical treatments matter. But sometimes the medical treatments fail. Sometimes the best practices aren’t enough. Still, even in such instances, even when medical healing was elusive, her patients found different types of healing—emotional, psychological, spiritual—because they were able to share their story with her, or with others in their lives. In sharing their stories, they were known, seen, witnessed, held.

Everybody is a story.

Without a doubt, our bodies matter. And we are always more than our bodies. We are also meaning-filled vessels. That is, we make our way through the world and through our lives by finding meaning in our experiences. We express that meaning through the stories we tell about ourselves—the stories we tell to ourselves and to others.

We sometimes play the game “Two Truths and a Lie” as an icebreaker. In this game, each participant introduces themselves to the group by naming two things about themselves that are true, and one thing that isn’t. The people listening then have to guess which thing is the lie. In the process, we get to know each other a little better. I propose a slightly amended game for our collective life together in January: “Three True Stories.” Think about three stories of events in your life that have been important to you—events that have taught you important life lessons, events that have shaped who you are today. Then, over the course of the month, share them with others from UUSE. At coffee hour, at committee check-ins, while volunteering for the auction, or driving someone to a doctor’s appointment, or at ROMEOS or Ladies at Lunch, etc. Tell your three true stories. And then listen to the stories of others. If you want me to listen, please reach out. I am happy to schedule a time to meet, listen and share.

Everybody is a story. Let’s put that notion into practice this month. We have much to gain.

With love and faith,

Rev. Josh Pawelek

#JanuaryNewsletter