December 7 – “Storyteller”

I’ve been trying to get into my role for our Bethlehem Street Market Craft Fair at Seaside tomorrow.  I’m scheduled to be the storyteller.  That means I get to dress up in a biblical era costume and every so often find the microphone (OK, kind of an anachronism there, I know) and, yep, tell a story.  I don’t know how many stories that will amount to over the course of the day, but the thing only lasts from 10 to 6, so how bad could it be?  And one of the stories is, well, THE Story, so that one is already taken care of by some guys name Luke and Matthew.  Long time ago. 

Actually I have a stash of stories already in my computer.  Not that I can walk around with a laptop, and I don’t have one of those new-fangled I-pad things.  So I decided I would go really old school.  I copied each story out, then taped them together end to end.  See where this is going?  Then I rolled them up and tied them shut with a strip of leather.  How’s that for a quickie semi-authentic scroll?  I am debating whether to burn the ends a little bit to make them look worn, but I do still have to be able to read them.  My next project was to find something to carry them in. What could serve as a first century edition of a laptop?  I finally settled on one of those black cloth bags you can buy at WalMart to carry your groceries in so you can feel like you are doing the planet a favor by staying away from plastic bags.  I turned it inside out so you can’t see the distinctive corporate logo.  That’ll work. 

Along with the story scrolls I had another idea.  I’m going to pick up some candy canes to give away.  Why candy canes?  No they weren’t originally created by some struggling artisan in the year 60 A.D. to be a secret way of distinguishing Christians in a time of persecution.  It’s just that I found a poem I put together several years ago that compiled what history I was able to find about it.  The plan is to roll up the poem into a tiny scroll and attach one to each candy cane.  That way the word about Jesus will get spread into each kid’s household.  Hope that works out. 

Psalms 45:6 says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.”

Father, tell your story tomorrow.  Draw people to really hear it.  Amen.