I am growing weary of serious stuff on this blog. So, I am including another classic story for your pleasure.
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I have always wished that I had been there the day that my grandmother rode the pig…backwards. It seems like I should have been present for such a momentous occasion.
I would not make something like this up. It really happened and I am pretty sure that Grandma Roland would not rest well if she knew that I was sharing this story with you.
My grandmother was what, in those days, was referred to as a “holiness woman.” She believed that what you did, said and wore were important reflections of your actual state of grace with God. Riding pigs was not considered to be a normal part of the holiness experience. Especially in a dress, in front of a man…even if he had been your husband for 40 years. It certainly wasn’t something that you talked about with others.
It seems that my grandfather had asked Blanche (Blanche being Grandma Roland’s name) to help him get an especially difficult sow separated from the rest of the pigs. All he asked her to do was stand in the door between the swine and dairy sides of the barn while he got the rest of the herd to run outside. As most of her companions escaped to the pig pasture, the sow in question became rather excited and looked for alternative routes of escape.
Now, one of the characteristics of older holiness women is their absolute abhorrence of jeans, slacks or pants. They share the general understanding that if God had meant a woman to wear trousers He wouldn’t have invented dresses. With that in mind, my grandmother had gone to the barn in her normal clothing.
I personally believe the sow may have had a genuine conversion experience when it saw the light below Blanche’s hemline and between her legs. The pig went for it as a sinner seeking salvation…on her knees.
When the sow could see clearly on the other side of my grandmother, it spied something that must have warmed its heart every bit as much as John Wesley’s on Alderstreet…an open barn door. There could have been no finer sight and there was no stopping it now.
As the pig went between Blanche’s legs, it lifted up. At the same time, Grandma’s dress stretched and tightened down. Without a great deal of forethought, my grandmother found herself riding a pig backwards about to experience what was on the “other side.”
Considering that he had been trying to corner this particular sow, it was probably good that my grandfather chased through the barn and out the door after my grandmother and her newly acquired steed.
Once the pig was free of the barn it ran up the road to the other farm buildings. When it got to the lawn area between the orchard and the house it began to run in circles with my grandmother still mounted. She cried out, “Joe, Joe!” (Joe being my grandfather’s Christian name).
It is at this point that Grandpa Roland committed a serious matrimonial error.
Rather than trying to reach over and somehow get Blanche off the pig’s back, he stopped and laughed. Not the delicate “I am afraid I have caught you at an embarrassing moment” laugh, but the “this is too funny to be true” kind of laugh that only tends to infuriate real holiness people. After all, humor is a bit too close to sin to be tolerated comfortably.
My grandmother realized that she should have never allowed herself to be used in such a way. Finally, as the pig completed one more circuit, she leaned over and fell onto the grass.
I have been told and can easily believe that she didn’t talk to Grandpa for two weeks.
One of the reasons that I wish that I had been there the day that Grandma Roland road the pig is that it became one of those stories that would always be repeated when Grandma was just out of hearing range. I can still see my uncle (who was not present when it happened) telling the story and laughing so hard that he cried. If grandma had caught him telling it, he would have cried in a different way.
Stories were always part of our family. Almost every Sunday of my childhood we either “went visiting” or, had some someone come and sit with us for awhile. Once the food had been consumed, the price of milk discussed and the latest news communicated, the stories would begin. There were no rules about who could tell the stories (we all knew them by heart), but there were always some who were known for telling the right stories in the right way. My Uncle Phil could tell a story. Uncle Jim could tell the funniest stories with a straight face (He also had a pair of great-Grandfathers named Ole Olson and Sven Svenson, but that is a whole other story). My father could tell stories that were so funny or so sad that you could get choked up either way.
My grandfather could tell stories. Of course, he never got to tell the one about Grandma on the pig. At least not within earshot of her.
It has been occasionally said of me that I tell stories.
While some people intend to subtly insult me when they say that I am a “story teller”, I take it as a compliment. I follow the tradition of my uncles, father and grandfather. More than that, I believe I follow the tradition of God.
Eugene Peterson wrote, “ The biblical story comprises other literary forms – sermons and genealogies, prayers and letters, poems and proverbs – but story carries them all in its capacious and organically intricate plot. Moses told stories; Jesus told stories; the four Gospel writers presented their good news in the form of stories. And the Holy Spirit weaves all this storytelling into the vast and holy literary architecture that reveals God to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the way He chooses to make Himself known. Story. To get the revelation right, we enter the story.” (“Leap Over A Wall”, Eugene Peterson, p. 3)
I like what John Eldredge wrote in The Sacred Romance: “Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes…Story is the language of the heart. Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract propositions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of story.”
I wish I could have been there the day Grandma Roland rode the pig, but I am especially glad that I was there when the story was told…again and again and again. Each time she lived again with all of her personality traits, religion, rules and life force. If reincarnation exists it is only in the stories that we tell.
An old Scottish missionary in Bolivia once explained the Lord’s Supper to me in a way that finally made sense. He said that what Christians call Holy Communion is nothing but the continuation of an old Middle Eastern tradition. After a man died, his friends would gather together on a regular basis to enjoy a special supper where the main topic of conversation would be their deceased companion. Many times, in the midst of the stories and humorous accounts, the deceased man would almost seem to come alive again in their midst.
That is what the Lord’s Supper should be! Stories that make Him come alive.
I am not ashamed of occasionally telling a few stories. I admit that I love seeing people’s eyes open up in surprise or crinkle in laughter at just the right moment. It is who I am and it is who the people I tell stories about once were.
In some ways, my whole missionary adventure these past 23 years has been a story. It certainly has been an adventure. It has also been fun, challenging and occasionally a little frightening.
Of course, all of this reminds me of a story…
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