November 22, 2024

 

​Today is a tragic anniversary in our nation’s history. Sixty-one years ago today President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in an open car through Dealy Plaza in downtown Dallas. It happened only about 20 miles from here. I am always struck by the weight of this date, particularly when Nov. 22 falls on a Friday, as it did in 1963. I still get a chill when I drive on Elm Street through Dealy Plaza, past the building that housed the Texas School Book  Depository, past the grassy knoll, under the triple overpass.

I have been fascinated by the Kennedy assassination since I was a little boy. I am not usually prone to conspiracy theories, and I long ago accepted that we’ll probably never know the full story about what happened that day and in the days that followed. But I think I’ve read practically every book ever published about it. And I have read a lot about John Kennedy’s presidency as well as his life. And it all started with my grandmother.

In my grandparents’ house there was a bookshelf. And when I was very young I found a book on it called Four Days. It had a simple black hard cover with just those four words printed on it. It was published in January 1964 by United Press International, and it tells the story of those tragic events, from Kennedy’s arrival at Love Field on Friday to his burial at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. Something about the book and its pictures fascinated me, though at my young age I didn’t really follow the text of the story.

But then my grandmother sat with me on the sofa and walked me through the book. She told me the story of the young president and his beautiful wife. How that tragic event that day forever changed America. How she had cried for a man she didn’t know and cried for his wife and his two children. And through her telling of the story, John Kennedy became my story as well, even though he died nearly four years before I was born.

That’s the power of telling our story. Because when we tell our story, it can become another’s story as well. It’s why we as followers of Jesus Christ must be willing to tell our story. To share with others how are lives are transformed by following Jesus. How we come to experience the fullness of God’s love and grace. So that they may come to understand the story and claim it as their own. So their lives may be transformed as well.

As a footnote, I spent my entire childhood and adolescence reading that book on my grandparents’ shelf. When I turned 18, my grandmother gave it to me as a gift. She wrote an inscription in it that said “To Lee from Mimi, who loves him very much.” I still get it out from time to time and read it again, carefully turning pages that have become brittle with age. I don’t read it for information, though. I know it all practically by heart. I do it because it’s a reminder of a special time when my Mimi shared her story with me … and made it mine.

See you Sunday.