Last night I did another one of those things that’s supposed to be a time-waster: Be reading something purposeful online and then get sidetracked. Somehow I ended up reading about how Margaret became Margaret and Larry became Larry.
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Margaret ran out of books to read. Her husband suggested she write her own. So over several years, she did. She told few people; it was just a hobby. She never tried to turn it into a real book.
In her job at a newspaper in Atlanta, she was helping a book publisher find new authors in the South. She didn’t think of herself as one of those authors. The publisher guy found her entertaining and asked if she’d ever thought of writing a book. Margaret's friend laughed: Margaret? Write a book?
This playful mocking bugged Margaret and later that night she went to the publisher’s hotel with bundles of papers that were her manuscript. He had to buy another suitcase to take it with him.
He loved it. Everyone who read it loved it. It sold millions and made her famous and won a Pulitzer Prize. Three years later it was an Academy Award winning movie. Seventy years later we still quote lines from the movie.
She never wrote another book. She said being the author of Gone With the Wind was a full time job with all the calls and interviews and door bell ringing.
Ten years later she was crossing Peach Street in Atlanta with her husband to go to a movie. An off-duty cab driver’s car hit her. She died five days later.
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Larry was a small town kid who went off to the big college. For 24 days. The college was too big – twenty times bigger than the town he was from – and he went home and got a job with the street department. Larry liked the job and said he could have done it for a long time. But Larry had a gift. And people who recognized and needed his gift came after him.
Larry knew he had a gift, too, and knew he needed to use it. When he did, he made everyone around him better. He was like magic, though it was his friend who had that name.
Larry’s gift was basketball and he took his teammates and team where they’d never gone before, to an undefeated season and a national championship game. When he went pro he took his new team from 29 wins to 61 wins in one year. He got trophies and championships and recognition as the best.
Then his back hurt and he stopped. He’s an executive now, in the sport where he was magic but it’s not the same magic.
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I didn’t make notes on those things I read when I chased the rabbit. Why do I remember the stories?
I had known the facts – Margaret Mitchell was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Larry Bird was a Hall-of-Famer. Isn’t that all you need, the facts? Maybe – if the goal is to pass a test on the facts. Why was I interested in more?
Why did you keep reading what I wrote about people you don’t know or care about?
Isn’t there’s a built-in curiosity to know the how and where and when and why along with the what? Where does that curiosity come from? It must be there for a reason. There must be something to be gained, or some glory God can get, from pursuing that curiosity.
Margaret and Larry’s stories connected me to them, even though I’ll never meet or know them. Everytime I hear stories like that I feel that connection.
I think the connection is to that messy mix of humanity God put in each of us. And he put each of us with our common humanity in the middle of other messy lives that move and breathe and are connected. I’m not the only one. I’m not by myself.
The facts and people that I’ve “heard of” are real, and live in a context of other facts and people, just like me. And even with the people I know personally I’m usually unfamiliar with the context – the story – of the things I know about them. When I hear a story I connect with them more.
Stories connect us and make sure we remember people are real. Without that connection to others thru their story I could think somehow I’m different – better or worse – and that would be a disconnection from reality.
Stories encourage us when we think we’re alone, and keep us humble when we forget others are as real as we are.
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