Parish Theme: Six Just Words—
Just Six Words
Read the six word stories of our Bethany family!
Not Quite What I Was Planning is a collection of six word memoirs. Other than the introduction, the entire book is a collection of individuals’ recollections and/or summations of their lives in only six words.
The Introduction of the book recounts a legend that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” was Hemingway’s completed work. Legend continues that he called it his greatest work. The memoir says that thus, “the six-word story was born.”
That isn’t entirely true. Six-Word stories are found throughout the Scripture, Liturgy, the Hymnody of the Church and common slogans within Christendom and even our congregation. In these six-word stories the faith is contained, summarized, systematized, proclaimed, and empowered by the Spirit lived out in the lives of Christians.
“A Mighty Fortress is our God.”
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”
“Have mercy on me, O God.”
“Take, eat, this is my body.”
“Be holy, because I am holy.”
“As for me and my household.”
“For God so loved the world.”
“Here I stand, God help me.”
“God is good, all the time.”
“My stuff, is not my stuff.”
These are but a few six-word stories that have held out the promise of God, the faith of the church and the life of His people.
In our Parish Theme this school year at Bethany we will explore pairs of six-word stories under the title of “Six Just Words, Just Six Words.”
Each pair will contain words of promise from God, His “Six Just Word” memoir if you will, that engender a corollary response from us, His children, our “Just Six Words” memoir so to speak. By no means are the pairs we will focus on the only six-word stories in Scripture. They are, however, six pairs that tell the entire story of the Christian faith. In fact, if you had to explain the biblical message to someone in only six pairs of six-word stories, these would accomplish the task. To grasp in your heart the essentials of the Christian faith (something 66 books of the Bible proclaim and tens of millions of volumes have been written throughout history) in six words is no small task. Yet, these six-pairs of six-word stories can do just this: capture the essentials of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
We encourage you to start finding six-word stories in Scripture & to start trying to sum your life story into a six-word memoir too. So, put on your thinking cap.