(Thanks to Pastor for introducing me to the following poem.)
“He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
 But love and I had the wit to win;
We drew a circle that took him in.” -Â Â
 —  Edwin Markham
If you know me at all, you know two basic things about me. One is that I pretty much carry a book everywhere. Even if I am in a situation where I’m not going to be reading, I usually have a book with me. Daddy once had to pull over during a road trip to get a book from the trunk. I had finished the one I was reading and was not acting very ladylike without something else to read. Books are pretty much to me what a thumb and blanket are to Linus. I’m almost never without one.
The other thing about me that is pretty apparant pretty quickly is that I talk. I don’t just talk, I talk all the time. Mama says that when I was little, I would babble to myself in my crib. No one was around but me and the toys, but there I was…talking without real words.
I do that, you know. Talk. And because I talk, you may get the impression that I can’t keep secrets.
In that you’d be right. And in that you’d be wrong.
If I’m told something is a secret, I can keep it. For example, in February of my junior year of college, Kenny told me that he was going to propose in July but only if I didn’t tell anybody. It was the longest half year of my life. That one, I kept. Generally, though, if I know something, I tell it. If I’m in a conversation with someone and a third party walks up, I like to recap the conversation so everyone knows what’s going on. If there is a detail that I have gotten wrong, I’ll often go back and have the conversation again, letting people know what I’ve misquoted or mistaken.
I’ve thought a lot about why I do this. Other people are fine with keeping the things in their head…in..well their head. I however, cause my mother to say “If Stephanie doesn’t tell you everything she knows (about a subject), she thinks she is lying.”
Maybe I like attention. Maybe I like the sound of my own voice. Maybe I can’t stand for a room to be silent.
I think though, that this…need…to have everyone included, no one left out comes from some of the schools I attended. I was too…uncoordinated, pale, literature minded, slow at getting inside jokes, something to be a part of much of anything “groupy” or “inside” or “popular”. So I can’t stand it when I get even a hint of someone being confused or excluded or not knowing what is going on.
This, this “family”, this “circle”, this “group inclusion” is one thing that my Devotion in Motion group does very well. When Amanda and I started this Creative Ministries class, we weren’t sure how it was going to go. By the time we got our core group, we found ourselves with kids ages four to seventeen. *Gulp* You see, for the most part, four year olds can’t read and between that and the students’various interests in puppets, drama, dance and song, we weren’t sure how we were going to do anything, much less pull together a skit or two.
Well we’ve done a skit or two. We’ve done a song and a dance and a puppet show. Er…well, I take that back. We didn’t do much at all. Besides a few “don’t turn your back to the audience” and “no you can’t both play the part of the bad guy, one of you is going to have to be the hero” type comments, the kids are doing it themselves. They are capable of casting themselves, choreographing themselves, directing themselves. Now Amanda and I aren’t about to turn the class over to them (they aren’t -that- grown up yet), but we’re so proud of the group they are becoming.
They are different ages. They are different reading levels. They are different grades. They go to different schools, wear different clothes, play different sports. They listen to different music, read different books, come from different backgrounds. Some of them are even from different generations.
But they love each other. They support each other. They are becoming a group.
I hope that they stay together for years to come.
Â