WRITINGS ANCIENT AND MODERN by Liz Manning
One of my favourite and most satisfying types of writing is
reimagining Bible stories: whether as short stories, drama scripts, poetry, or even
a game. Recently, I’ve been writing these for ‘Devotions’ in my Boys’ Brigade
company.
It’s a challenge working out something that grabs the
attention of eight to fifteen year olds. To be honest, they all seem to enjoy
listening to a good story, whatever their age. But I want these stories to be
more than historical records or bedtime tales. I want the narratives to portray
real people with similar hopes, faults, worries, and idiosyncrasies as the boys.
I want them to picture themselves in that situation, asking,
‘What if that were me? How would I react?’
If the boys can imagine themselves meeting Jesus,
encountering God, maybe they can go on to do it for real.
Sometimes I do this by focussing on the personal emotions
and reactions of a character, leaving the practical details ambiguous (although
the younger boys always like to guess at who the protagonist is). In an attempt
to make it timeless, I hope to reduce distancing, the temptation to dismiss its
relevance.
But the other thing I do is to look for directly comparable
situations and tell the story as if it were contemporary.
Last year, I wrote an account of the first Easter morning.
Grave cloths left folded in a garden cave sealed by a boulder didn’t fit the
bill for this modern retelling. Instead, an open grave with a coffin, lid
removed, in the middle of a cemetery, angels mistaken for gravediggers, made
much more sense.
This week, inspired by a song my BB boys had performed in a competition,
I retold the story of Gethsemane, emphasising how hard it was to stay awake after
so much food and drink, interspersed with verses and chorus from Bruno Mars’s
Count On Me. I hope the combination led
them to consider the meaning of commitment, forgiveness, and friendship with
Jesus for themselves.
Today is Palm Sunday and I can’t help remembering the morning
I let my Youth Group watch a Spurs FA cup victory parade pass outside our
church instead of going to the service, before relating it to Jesus’ own parade
into Jerusalem. Many years later I thought of what else the Triumphal Entry reminded
me of and wrote this:
Carnival
New
Year’s Eve
End of
term
Our team
bringing home the cup
A jubilee
A street
party
A victory
parade
All
rolled into one
Colour
and noise
Cheering
and singing
Camaraderie
and excitement
All here
for one purpose
“Do you
remember the first…?”
“What
about the last…?”
All
drowned out by
“Here
they come now!”
The
contrasting second half of the poem hits a more sombre beat, a hint of things
to come after the partying ends. But you get the point?
Holy Week is such a rich seam of inspiration and
contemplation. And maybe it’s not just my BB boys who would benefit from a
fresh, more modern take on the familiar stories. Fancy a go?
Liz Manning fits writing around being an Occupational Therapist, BB captain, wife, and mum to two adult sons. Or perhaps it's the other way round. She blogs regularly at
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