Pastor Wayne's World
In 1983, Dan Hurley took his 1953 Royal typewriter onto Chicago’s Michigan Avenue to begin writing what he called “60-Second Novels.” Thinking it would be a one-time lark, he offered to interview passersby and write a story inspired by their conversation. The response changed his life: people lined up to pay $5 per story, pouring out their stories as if he were a confessor or Dear Abby. He quit his job as an editor to travel the country in search of stories, eventually writing the life stories of over 22,613 people and counting!
Just think of it! Your life story in sixty seconds! If you could have Mr. Hurley write about you in 60 seconds, what would he say? Would he speak of a life of love and devotion? Would he show you as unique? Would he succinctly summarize a life of purpose or a life wasted on all the wrong things?
One night, two pretty young women walked up to him at the corner of Columbus and 72nd Street in New York, and introduced themselves as Lyn and Suzanne. “Out shopping?” he asked. “We’re on day leave from the psychiatric floor of a hospital,” said Lyn. “Seriously? What’s the problem?” he asked. “Manic depression,” said Lyn. “I tried committing suicide, so my parents committed me,” said Suzanne. “But is life really so bad?” he asked. “I mean – isn’t there any good in life that you’d want to kill yourself? You would have missed this beautiful day.” “Sometimes I just forget about the good,” said Suzanne, “because there’s so much bad.” So Dan Hurley wrote this for their Sixty Second Novel:
THE FORGETTING SICKNESS AND THE REMEMBERING RECOVERY
Lyn and Suzanne had this thing where they kept forgetting. They would wake up in the morning and forget about the smell of a lake in the woods at dawn in the autumn. They would forget about being held by another human being. They would forget the feeling of getting really excited about something coming up, something big like Christmas, or something small like waiting for dinner to be served.
Or they would forget the sound of geese going north in the Spring. They would forget the taste of coffee in the morning when you wake up, and how the shower feels when you get in and it starts waking you up, and you push the bar of soap over you and your skin starts to tingle. They forgot all sorts of things, like love and friends and hope. They forgot hearing all the traffic, joking with other people on the street.
Then they went to a nice place where doctors helped them to remember. And slowly now they are starting to remember. But as they remember all these beautiful things, they also begin to remember the pain and the trauma and the difficulties, which is why they forgot the beautiful things in the first place. But that is life. The pain AND the beauty, the good AND the bad. And so we hang onto the beauty and the love and the happiness, we hang on strong, and remember it. Remember these good things. Remember to remember. The End.
There it is; a life summed up in sixty seconds. I wonder how we would sum up our lives in sixty seconds. What would Dan Hurley write about you or me?
Blessings!
Pastor Wayne
Just think of it! Your life story in sixty seconds! If you could have Mr. Hurley write about you in 60 seconds, what would he say? Would he speak of a life of love and devotion? Would he show you as unique? Would he succinctly summarize a life of purpose or a life wasted on all the wrong things?
One night, two pretty young women walked up to him at the corner of Columbus and 72nd Street in New York, and introduced themselves as Lyn and Suzanne. “Out shopping?” he asked. “We’re on day leave from the psychiatric floor of a hospital,” said Lyn. “Seriously? What’s the problem?” he asked. “Manic depression,” said Lyn. “I tried committing suicide, so my parents committed me,” said Suzanne. “But is life really so bad?” he asked. “I mean – isn’t there any good in life that you’d want to kill yourself? You would have missed this beautiful day.” “Sometimes I just forget about the good,” said Suzanne, “because there’s so much bad.” So Dan Hurley wrote this for their Sixty Second Novel:
THE FORGETTING SICKNESS AND THE REMEMBERING RECOVERY
Lyn and Suzanne had this thing where they kept forgetting. They would wake up in the morning and forget about the smell of a lake in the woods at dawn in the autumn. They would forget about being held by another human being. They would forget the feeling of getting really excited about something coming up, something big like Christmas, or something small like waiting for dinner to be served.
Or they would forget the sound of geese going north in the Spring. They would forget the taste of coffee in the morning when you wake up, and how the shower feels when you get in and it starts waking you up, and you push the bar of soap over you and your skin starts to tingle. They forgot all sorts of things, like love and friends and hope. They forgot hearing all the traffic, joking with other people on the street.
Then they went to a nice place where doctors helped them to remember. And slowly now they are starting to remember. But as they remember all these beautiful things, they also begin to remember the pain and the trauma and the difficulties, which is why they forgot the beautiful things in the first place. But that is life. The pain AND the beauty, the good AND the bad. And so we hang onto the beauty and the love and the happiness, we hang on strong, and remember it. Remember these good things. Remember to remember. The End.
There it is; a life summed up in sixty seconds. I wonder how we would sum up our lives in sixty seconds. What would Dan Hurley write about you or me?
Blessings!
Pastor Wayne