This story is about the rules we learn early in our life through our games on playgrounds that eventually become the divisions in the wider society we live in as adults. Here is an excerpt:

Elementary playgrounds are not as innocent as they are often imagined to be. It was there among the multi-colored slides and merry-go-rounds that I learned how to accept, judge, compare, stereotype, forgive and even fear other human beings. It was at recess, twice a day, that I experienced human behavior at its absolute best. It was also there, running back and forth on the blacktop, that I discovered the worst of what we can be when we allow our differences to drive us apart.

Things we learn in elementary school are often the most lasting because they occur long before we perceive we are making choices about who we are or who we are going to be. Our understandings of the rules of the wider society seep deep into our consciousness in the midst of play and therefore, sidestep our normal internal alarms and suspicions. These ways of, and rules for, treating other people don’t seem so important or serious because they are just part of playing a game.

Sometimes the people we meet early on in our life stay with us as we experience the rest of our life. We were never a large group of church friends and perhaps the fact that our numbers rarely exceeded a dozen, made those days together even more memorable and worthy of a story. With all groups of people who grow up together, some drifted away and others joined us later in our adventures. However, most of those who, in church language, shared in cookie communion together in that nursery, were still there when it came time to be released into the wider world following our graduation from high school.

I learned early that moving from one world to the next, from one phase of life to the next part of the life journey was difficult but well worth the effort. I believe I hid this story of how my days in seminary began for two possible reasons. One, I was a little ashamed of being so poor and being from a culture that was more worried that I might learn strange things in seminary, rather than seeing anything odd about driving a little mattress flying car across the country. I did not want people to see me as Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies show. However, two, I think part of my reason for not mentioning all the events that nearly prevented me from making my way to the next phase of my life, was because in the wonderful culture I grew up in, this was simply just another day of finding my way in the world.

Our world changed... and perhaps with it, so all of us has too. I hope for a world where the differences we have with one another do not encourage the harm and threat of those we deem to be different. I am just storyteller and simply offer this story of a long time ago that took place on an island that looked like a turkey.

During the days when I was privileged to see the world through the eyes of my youth, I remember knowing that my friends were both Democrats and Republicans, they were Baptists and Catholics and even an atheist, if my memory is true. I knew some were liberal and others conservative, but those terms seemed secondary and only served as descriptors to our diversity and not impediments to our friendship.

I miss that island! I loved that place for all the things it allowed me to become back then. My love for that island is not the kind that would compel me to give up my future travels just to go back for one more visit. In fact, it was my time on that island with my friends in the Turkey Island Gang that taught me to take risks and walk down lots of other paths to other uncertain possibilities, even if I often had to mow those paths myself. I will always love that island for the way it pushed me to explore other places!

I owe a lot to my grandfather for the person I have become. When I was young, I saw him as nothing short of a superhero with amazing powers to make his and other's lives better. What I did not then, but learned later, is that he really was a hero who saved the lives of millions during World War II. He and so many of that generation fought against evil in this world unleashed by Adolph Hitler. He was one of those soldiers who first came upon the concentration camp at Dachau. The interesting thing is that my grandfather chose never to speak of his time during war, I share it here, in part, because he and so many others deserve to known as hero's. We need more of them in our world.

Its interesting how our childhood experiences can live underneath our adult lives. Sometimes the effects are positive while other times these memories cause us to fear and mistrust ourselves and others. Even worse, most of the time, human beings are completely unaware of the way these events impact our adult life. As a therapist, my wife often helps me understand how our "Childhood Self" can manifest in our reactions to others and situations. This can occur through our fears, anxiety, need to protect, shame and even perhaps in my mother's case, the need to move the living room furniture every week. My mother never had the resources to visit a counselor to explore these manifestations in her life, instead she just had a son who loved to tell stories to make some meaning out of those moments. If you have a few "Secret Messages" showing up in your life, please seek out a counselor to help you decipher these message into something positive.

A short story about a father, my father, passing on the wisdom to live life in such a way that we do not let our souls become too old. Stories of death and dying are not easy shared or really common between a father and son but my father was anything common. I am thankful for his words to me or at least the way the words landed on this storytellers heart.

My grandmother was one of my greatest faith mentors partly because she had seen the worst of what church could be and still managed to believe in God. Her life was harsh and difficult for a woman who chose to divorce her abusive husband in the 1940s and though she found very little grace and love from the church, she live a life in which she both gave and received joyful redemption to and from others. This story includes a few details surround my uncle Ronnie who struggled to find happiness in this world but in the end at least found some healing at the end of his life through my grandmother, his mother. This story is one I often tell from many directions, for many different audiences while making sure the truth of the story never changes.... However, this particular telling is closer to the real, raw and difficult details of why my grandmother taught me how to always find a way to give grace and accept for yourself as well. Some wounds that we experience in our childhood can never be fully healed but if my grandmother was even a little correct, its still worth trying to find a new story.