Tonight, I taught the brothers in jail about “plot,” the elements of a story.
I could have walked them through the formal sequence (exposition, rising
action, climax, falling action, & resolution), but they’re not going to be
asked those kinds of formal literary questions on the G.E.D. Instead we worked on answering the basic
narrative questions: who, what, when, where, why, & how. For that we used an old Sunday school lesson
from the same books we use at church.
Our Sunday School lessons begin with a little In Focus story which is a fictional anecdote about some
contemporary situation. Our story
tonight happened to be about a 15 year old boy who got arrested for fighting at
school. After the introductory story is
a passage of scripture. The scripture
from our lesson was from Exodus chapter 3, Moses and the burning bush.
The brothers had to explain the connection between the In Focus story and the Bible story.
They couldn’t find the connection until they broke down the who, what,
when, where, why, & how in each passage.
Then they saw the connection.
The point I made for them, the point I want to share with you is this:
When you understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of somebody’s story, you see how their
story and yours are connected. It doesn’t
matter how different the two of you are.
You may be as different as a 15 year old kid living in a 21st century
surburb and an 80 year-old fugitive sheepherder in the Midian wilderness of 1446
B.C. Still you both have committed
wrongs for which justice is due. Still
you both want mercy. Still you both have
to stand before a judge and humble yourselves.
One of you approaches the bench in a courtroom; the other approaches a
burning bush in the dessert. Yet, your
stories are connected.
When you can see the who, what, when, where, why, & how of another
person’s story you can find a way to relate to them, to respect them because
you appreciate the similarities of your stories rather than feeling at ease to
hate them because you think, “We have nothing in common.”
When you understand the who, what, when, where, why, & how of your own
story, you can see how you’ve allowed other people to “plot” on you and
manipulate your whys with whos & whens & wheres to make you do WHAT they
want you to.
When you understand the plot of your own story then you can change HOW
your life goes by taking conscious control of the other elements. When you understand your own whos, whats,
whens, wheres, whys, & hows, you can pick up the pen of your life and make the
next chapter of your story better than the last.
Yeah. In jail. With a bunch of
high school dropouts.
These men are uneducated, but they’re not stupid. They’ve done stupid stuff, but they’re not mindless. Every brother who is currently in a city or
county jail will get out. They can either get out wiser in positive things or
they can get out more educated in crime.
Support the ministries and programs that make them better than when they
went in. Because they will get out.
----- Anderson T. Graves II
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church
Call/ fax: 334-288-0577Email us at hallmemorialcme1@aol.com
Friend Pastor Graves at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
If you want to be a blessing to
this ministry, contributions may be made by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Rd., Montgomery, AL 36116
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