WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LOST ART OF HUMAN BLOGGING

I’ll admit my curiosity was piqued when the entertainment for our area ministers’ Christmas party this past Monday night was advertised as a story-teller, song-writer from Wyoming. We gathered around after the eats in the cozy overstuffed leather furniture, hot beverages in hand. Layton Howerton was his name. He had a book of one-page stories that were simple, yet powerful and delivered upon the platform of his warm personality. As I listened, I thought “it’s like he’s reading his blog to us”.

Unpretentious and engaging, Layton picked up his Gibson guitar darkened with age and began his first song, finger picking “Chet-Atkins style”, a style my Uncle Richard used to play, almost better than Chet himself. When he got to the chorus of his first song, that easy-gravel, booming male voice reminded me of my Uncle Dewey who would sing gospel songs with passion and what I later came to know as the “anointing” of God. It was just understood among our family that after a time of conversation, a guitar or two would come out and music began. No one asked. It just happened.

Layton’s next story was about an orange… the sole Christmas present received with deep appreciation, not too many decades back, not many miles from where we live … a story very similar to ones I’ve heard from my dad and his siblings. How did life get so materialistic so fast? My emotions were being bumped.

If I stop the noise and listen right now, my memory can surface the voices of the deep, slow southern draw of my dad and his brothers as they would tell stories. And we knew how to prod the stories. “Hey dad, didn’t your Uncle Lee test his Martin guitar for being water proof once?” That’s a great story (involving a river, a boat, a rope) that makes me lol right now. “Laugh out loud”? Oh, that was a contagious, rumbling reality among a room (without a T.V.) of present people who loved each, not just the push of three lower case letters on a cell phone.

A Christmas song with the mandolin, another story, then Layton reached for his “neck stand” that would hold his mouth organ a.k.a. harmonica so he could play it at the same time as his guitar. My dad had a large collection of harmonicas in various keys. But the most interesting was a double length silver harmonica, kept in a padded case, with a chromatic button on the end. He purchased it in Germany while in the Army during the Korean conflict and we knew not to play with it. Dad might have liked a neck stand like Layton’s to hold the harmonica, but he didn’t need one ... because he had me. As a child, I was just the right height to reach my dad's face with the harmonica when he sat holding his guitar. Wow, were we amazed he played two instruments at once.

My dad and his brothers have all passed away. But the stories? They’ve been replaying in my mind since Monday night’s party. It seems when the story being told intersects with OUR story, we are deeply moved as was I at the rich evening among colleagues enjoying the beautiful art of human blogging … or storytelling.

This Christmas, why not do some story telling of your own among your loved ones. And remember, the greatest story ever told is the story Christ is writing and He's written you into His story. May your stories intersect.

http://www.thestorytellersjournal.com/