Timeless Stories

Anyone who knows me for ten minutes knows I love Little House on the Prairie, the TV show with Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon. My students rolled their eyes several times a week, whenever I said, "There's a Little House episode for that!" No matter what heart or life problem you want to discuss, I can probably find an episode to match. And then recite it for you.

I'm not exaggerating.

Recently, I've been watching videos of The Waltons, another 1970s TV show dealing with an era of American history, a fictional representation of a real time. I know some episodes from re-runs, but not nearly as thoroughly as I do Little House. What has struck me over the past month (I'm finishing season 5 now), is how similar the two series are.

One takes place in the Midwest in the 1800s, before electricity and almost before telephones. Before cars and radios and TVs. The other show is set in Virginia during the Great Depression. They have cars and telephones and radios and electricity. One is about a family with four daughters and, over time, three adopted children (don't forget Jason Bateman and Missy Francis!), told from the second daughter's point of view. The other is of a much larger, multi-generational family told from the oldest son's point of view.

And yet so many episodes cover the same topics! Both have a fire episode, dealing with the loss of home and security. They both have an episode dealing with deafness, and another with blindness (The Waltons have one episode, while several seasons deal with Mary's blindness on Little House), and the fear that someone with these disabilities must come to terms with. The power of the news, life-threatening diseases, hardship and hope, family and romantic love, and growing up.

Granted, we don't deal with finding enough cash to buy shoes or go without. Most of us don't farm just enough to feed our families. And our outlook is much more global than Laura's, although John-boy understood the importance of world events. My point is, though, that, just as Ecclesiastes says, "There is nothing new under the sun." We still deal with family and work and disease and love. And some of us eventually grow up.

Parker Hill Community Church likes to put it this way: Every 1 Matters. Everyone has a story. What's yours?