Stories: August 2008 Archives

Many of the world's people have stories about a great flood that destroyed the worlds people save for one family.  Here is one told among the Cherokee.  This story does not have any overt theological message or moral lesson.  It seems to be a night time ghost story.

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A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.

Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.

James Moody,  Myths and Legends of the Cherokee

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley was born August 6, 1949.  In her memory today I publish what Marjorie considered her call narrative delivered as part of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Convocation in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Not by Ourselves Alone 

March 8, 2002 

In the late 1970's through the mid-1980's, I was living in Washington, D.C. working as a journalist and public television producer. I had chosen a profession in the news media because I wanted people to have the option of a different spin on the news of the corporate monopolies. I wanted to do stories so compelling that people might not only be inspired, but might actually feel compelled to act. 

Some of you will recall that the 1980's was a time when carjackings were a regular occurrence in some urban areas, and I was out covering such a story. An African American woman about my age (I was 35 or 36 at the time), was filling up her car with gasoline, and in the flash of an eye, a moment when she had turned away, someone had driven off not only with her car, but with her eight-year old daughter. Now I must tell you that I too had a daughter, so I had a deep identification with this woman. 

When I arrived on the scene, there were at least five radio and television stations that had set up their equipment, and four reporters had microphones in her face. I looked around at my camera man, who was about to join the mob, and I looked at the woman. She was visibly, and understandably upset, speaking in a soft voice; but not all of her sentences were complete or coherent. I made my way closer to her, all the time monitoring the pace of my crew's set-up. As other reporters probed her with questions, I placed my hand in hers. I remember thinking to myself, why don't they leave her alone. And then, there was this sudden awareness that I was one of them. They were my fellow reporters. And yet, I knew that the last thing she needed was not a gang of microphones in her face. In a flash, I remembered the words of one of my professors who, emphasizing that television news had to have pictures maintain its dramatic focus, had said to the class "keep the camera rolling until you make them cry." 

What this woman needed was someone to talk to about her troubles; someone to console her; someone with whom she could let out all her fears--without fear of exploitation; someone to tell her "it's gonna be alright." And when she grasped onto my hand for what seemed like dear life, I knew that I couldn't do the story, that I couldn't keep the camera rolling. 

I begged my fellow reporters to give her some breathing room, and she must have sensed that I had her interest at heart, because as I quietly guided her away from the crowd and toward my station's van, she did not resist. Eventually, the microphones and the reporters disappeared, audiotape and videotape in-hand for the evening news. The woman had held back the tears from the cameras, but within moments, she was weeping incessantly. As we sat waiting for a family member to arrive, I tried to comfort her between the tears as she told me bits and pieces of the story--without camera, without microphone. And when we parted, I said to her,  "Keep the faith." You will see your daughter again. And indeed, she did. 

I could not get this woman out of my mind for the rest of the day, and when I went home that evening, it  became really clear to me why. My values had gotten confused. I had had a long period of absence from churches, and so at the time, I didn't have the religious language to name what had happened with the woman at the gas station. I didn't realize until much later that I was doing pastoral ministry. The person behind the story had become more important to me than getting the story. And I knew that I could no longer be a reporter, at least not that kind of reporter. I knew that I would have to leave the media. I remained one more year at the television station to finish the documentary that I had already begun. I had been an activist, involved in social justice work. This, along with a deep need, and longing for reconnection with a faith community, I had found my way to All Souls Church in Washington, DC. When I saw an announcement on the church bulletin board of a job opening at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, there was no doubt in my mind. I had to work in a place where I could align my values with my work. And it wasn't long--perhaps a few months--before I was moving to Boston to live and nurture my faith, and to put my faith into action. 

At the Service Committee, and later at the Veatch Program, I began to understand justice work as ministry. But it wasn't until I was in theological school, that I found a definition of faith that made sense to me. It is gaining confidence through relating to others that there is sustaining grace in the universe, a power beyond ourselves that holds us ... and that we experience this power through our relationships with others and they with us. In other words, faith is relational. 

I now understood that the work I had done with the woman at the gas station might have been important in nurturing her faith as well as my own. For me, it was a turning point--an experience that helped to clarify my values, test the profession of journalism in a new way, and inform my faith, which was not fully coherent. 

I answered the call, and here I am, still nurturing my faith.

So what are the stars?  The Cherokee had more than one story about the stars but this is the one that Moody wrote down. 

"One night a hunting party camping in the mountains noticed two lights like large stars moving along the top of a distant ridge. They wondered and watched until the light disappeared on the other side. The next night, and the next, they saw the lights again moving along the ridge, and after talking over the matter decided to go on the morrow and try to learn the cause. In the morning they started out and went until they came to the ridge, where, after searching some time, they found two strange creatures about so large (making a circle with outstretched arms), with round bodies covered with fine fur or downy feathers, from which small heads stuck out like the heads of terrapins. As the breeze played upon these feathers showers of sparks flew out.

The hunters carried the strange creatures back to the camp, intending to take them home to the settlements on their return. They kept them several days and noticed that every night they would grow bright and shine like great stars, although by day they were only balls of gray fur, except when the wind stirred and made the sparks fly out. They kept very quiet, and no one thought of their trying to escape, when, on the seventh night, they suddenly rose from the ground like balls of fire and were soon above the tops of the trees. Higher and higher they went, while the wondering hunters watched, until at last they were only two bright points of light in the dark sky, and then the hunters knew that they were stars."

From Cherokee Myths and Legends by James Moody