Memories of childhood accumulate tenors as we age, much like films of dust on picture frames or piano key covers. The experience of an event is always different, a thing of its own, than the event itself, and so in many ways, knowing what took place — or at least the kind of sterile, unbiased knowing we imagine can emerge unscathed from any human interatction — is impossible. For me, the thought is comforting; I believe human subjectivity is part of God’s gracious inclusion of people into the creation of His story. The entire Bible is a mode of literary intersubjectivity that at its core process involves human input and interpretation, and importantly, this does not detract from its divine inerrancy or authority. However, for many, the idea that stories can be retold threatens their worldview. For some, that stories are told in the first place is at the very least dangerous. That God can be faultless, without shadow or turning, and also that people have been allowed to join in the artistry of retelling His Truth are two unavoidable facts that together make a great mystery.

This blog is nowhere near anything so grand as God’s Holy Word, nor am I suggesting the work of telling stories is always to produce a capturing of reality that can be both perfectly accurate and perfectly unique to the individual. There will be shadow, and there will be turning. There will be moments of revelation based on ordinary grace, but nothing so history-altering as divine inspiration. This is a story — my story — colored by my past self as well as my present self who is reflecting on my past with her own life and attachments as spectacles. I am merely looking at the dusty picture, pressing on the keys. 

To say there exists a pristine past to which we could all equally return is to operate within a very narrow view of the world and its people. We have all heard and possibly ourselves have made the lament of going back to “The Good Ol’ Days.” To that sentiment I have been wrestling and now ask, “For whom were they good?” I had a good childhood — two loving parents, everything I needed or wanted, acceptance and friendship among my peers. My recollection of what was good about my childhood, though, diverges from what my parents or others sometimes tell me was good about it. Sometimes their stories carry an undertone of fear or frustration for me that they cannot see from their vantage point. I do the same with my own children, protecting them in different ways even as I project my own biases and fears onto them, as I am sure they will do if and when they become parents themselves. The point is, I experienced childhood differently than my elders experienced me as a child, just as my children now have an experience of life that I can never fully know.

Maybe some will read this and be angry or saddened, but my purpose is specifically for the Church to reevaluate a unique side of ministry that often goes unanalyzed, or analyzed from what is assumed to be an unbiased, objective vantage point. For while human involvment always entails retelling and subjectivity, it also always entails sin and imperfection, and if we are not continually rooting those things out, then what are we doing as a Church? If we are not willing to reevaluate our motives in ministering to arguably the most defenseless group in our midst, then I believe we have hearts of stone that will eventually drag us to the bottom of the sea.

Every retelling is a chance for reevaluating.