Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning.
I'm a bit early a minute, but let's get started. There's much. I have some announcements and whatnot.
We're almost at the end of December.
Okay, Fourth Sunday, we'll be lighting that candle and thinking about God and his great glory and mercy. And we're grateful for Maria to finish us off because this is going to be our last one in the series until January 4th.
And then we will be starting a Journeys of Faith series.
Now, some of you may be familiar with that. Walking alongside the Greatest Generation through Gen Z is the subheading this year's speakers offer.
I'm just reading from what's written here. A remarkable range of voices from within our own congregation, voices shaped by ministry, creativity, creativity and leadership.
We begin with Felipe Haas, a Princeton Theological Seminary graduate and one of our dedicated youth advisors who brings a pastor's heart and a perspective of walking alongside young people in faith.
We continue with Dave Davis, pastor and head of staff, who reflects on 25 years of ministry at Nassau and stories that have shaped the community along the way.
Mid month, Christiane Lane. I already heard one of her talks and she shared a lovely one of her rounded prayer bits with me. I just use it all the time for worship. She'll be presenting her own musical composition as expressions of prayer, imagination and faith.
We conclude with Sarah Berliner, a current high school student who will premiere her documentary interviewing Mary Bett S. Clark, Duty Meyer, I think it is, and Nancy Prince and of course, our own Carol Wierheim.
Come for breakfast snacks day for wisdom, humor, creativity and witness of your fellow Nassau pilgrims.
Then we still need Lenten Devotional 2026 signup. So anybody who's feeling inclined to do that, you can speak from your heart. You don't necessarily have to be a great WR sometimes if you just say a prayer ahead. Lord, what would you have me think today? And what would you have me say today?
And let God work with that. And you don't know. There's probably many in our congregation who need that word of wisdom and encouragement.
Okay, so we have Maria Lobiando and she's been with us before.
My impression, a humble, gentle soul who is very experienced in the oral tradition of storytelling. And she shared her stories in congregation schools and community settings for many years. So she's bringing that heart to our discussion today.
So before we start, very important piece prayer. So if you could just bow your heads and dear Lord, we thank you for the gifts that are in this church, for the opportunities in this church, for the fact that we can have somebody like Maria come to this church and teach us and encourage us.
Lord, we all have stories.
And some parts of them are painful. Some parts of them are joyous. Some parts of them aren't completely written yet.
And as we think of our own stories, we think of the greatest story. And that's your story. Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, Immanuel, God who is with us, we thank you for that story.
And as we think of our stories, may we find in your story fresh meaning and heart to go on, to go on in love, to go on in purpose, to go on in faith.
In the days ahead.
I pray this prayer in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Even with all the time I've done this, it's still new to get the mic on every time. Technology is not, my friend.
Good people all this Christmas tide, remember well and bear in mind what our good God for us has done in sending us the beloved son.
O, let us all both sing and pray to God with love.
On Christmas day in Bethlehem, blessed morn, there was a precious messiah born.
You have a big banner in the front of Nassau Presbyterian saying, sing of a savior. So I decided we should start with a song.
Let me just move this over a little bit, because when I go this way, you can't hear me.
Oh, okay.
We'll do it.
How's that? Better.
So how's your Advent going?
When Elle and I were talking, Pamela and I were talking. Doesn't it seem to go faster every year?
And yet when I was younger, it seemed to take forever to get to Christmas.
The waiting. And of course, that's part of what Advent is about.
I'm a teller of multicultural tales. And though the past few have been here, I have told literary tales. Today I'm going to share with you some of those folk tales, those multicultural tales that I have been telling over the years.
I will admit that most of my repertoire is European, but in an effort to expand and diversify, I have tried to find tales from other parts of the world.
And early on in my storytelling career, I found this story from Ethiopia.
Now, you probably know that there are Coptic Christians in Ethiopia, so there are several Christian stories that are part of their folktales.
And I found this one, and I fell in love with it, But I had nowhere to tell it until today.
It is called How God Helped Mamo.
In the Tigra region of Ethiopia, in a small village, there lived a man named Mamo.
The people there said he was the laziest man in all of Ethiopia.
For Mamo, did not like to work. And because he did not like to work, he had a great girth around him.
Now, how did Mammo survive?
Well, he was a great talker, and he had the ability to charm the villagers into sharing their food with him. And if a traveler came to the village, well, that was the occasion, of course, for a great feast.
And Mamo charmed them into holding that feast.
Now, in that part of the world, there is a revered saint, Saint Theklahemenot.
Saint Teclahemenot was a hermit and a monk, and was born on December 24th.
And so in many places, on the 24th of the month, there is some sort of reverence for this saint.
And it happened not too far from where Mamo lived, on a village on top of a mountain.
There was a great reverence for the saint in August, and the people there held a great feast. And, of course, free food. Mamma was there, and he ate enough for three people.
And when the villagers questioned him about this, he would tell them, oh, but the saint would want you to be generous.
And what could they say?
Well, it happened that the feast was coming around again, and Mama was dreaming of the roast chicken and the roast lamb and the sauces that they would be simmered in and the injera pancake bread that he would use to sop up those sauces. Oh, his mind was full of this.
But there was a problem.
No one wanted to lend Mammo their donkey because they were afraid he'd squash it.
He would have to walk the mountain to get to the feast.
Well, Mammo.
So of course, he started walking toward the village.
But it was a very hot day, and he started sweating. And he had gone about a mile when he decided he needed a nap.
He found some shade, some trees, some bushes, and he lay down to take a rest.
And as he was resting, he had an idea.
When he got up from his nap, he stood up, raised his hands to heaven, and in a loud voice, so that God would hear him, he said, a mighty one. You see before you your servant, Mao. You know, I'm going to the feast of St. Teklahaminat, but I need help.
Please send help.
And then, very proud of his prayer and his speaking, he went back for another nap.
Well, while Mamo had been taking his first nap, Crack had come ayell the greatest hunter in that region.
And aiel donkey that was laden down with gazelle skins.
And when he saw Mamo taking his nap, he thought, this is a good place to let my donkey take a Break.
And so he went out of the sight of Mamo and took the pack off of his donkey to let his donkey forage a bit.
And while he was there, he heard Mamo's great prayer.
And this made him very angry, for he knew that Mamo was not going to Reverend Saint Thecla Hamenot. Mamo was going to have free food at the feast.
And so decided to answer Mamo's prayer as an avenging angel.
And he stepped out to where Mamo was and said, I have come to help.
Mamo sat up. God answered quickly, how are you going to help me?
First you must put on this pack.
So Mamo stood up, and Ayo began to put his donkey's burden on Mammo's back.
How will this help me?
It will balance out on your back, that great girth you have in your front.
And then when Mamo was all strapped in, AIEL removed his shama.
And Mamo saw who it was and was immediately afraid.
And AIEL said, you have prayed that you will not have to walk up the mountain, and you will not.
You will run.
And he pulled out his sword and he said, and if you slow down, this will help you speed up again.
And then he whacked Mammo on his backside. Go.
So Mamo started trotting as fast as Mamo could trot up the mountain.
And AIEL walked behind with his donkey and only too happy to trot because now he didn't have to carry those gazelle skins. And they followed Mamo, who's huffing and puffing and sweating, up the mountain.
At one point, Mamo brushed against some thorn bushes and he thought it was Aiel's sword. And he shot out as fast as he could. And AIEL thought, I didn't know Mamo could move so fast. And it took him some time to catch up.
But they made it all the way up to that village on the mountain. And when the villagers saw Mamo running, they couldn't believe their eyes.
Mamo made it up the mountain, and as he reached the village, he collapsed, sweating and huffing and puffing, and promptly fell back to sleep.
They had a great feast.
There was enough food for everybody.
Mamo slept through all of it, people said. After that, Mamo was a changed man.
For one thing, he didn't talk quite so much.
And for another, sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he actually worked for his food.
Now, we all have a saying.
Be careful what you wish for.
But Mamo learned, be careful what you pray for.
You see why I love that story, Right?
And isn't it true? I know when I was younger, especially in Advent, you prayed for the gifts that you wanted. You prayed for God to give you what you wanted, right?
Which is a little different than what we sometimes should be praying for or accepting that comes our way.
Well, angels come in many forms, sometimes even human form.
The next story I'd like to share with you is actually an urban legend.
Now, what's an urban legend?
An urban legend is something that might have happened.
There might have been a real person who this happened to or who did the action in the story.
But it's anonymous, and nobody knows where it started, and nobody knows where it came from.
And I found this in that great repository that we all have come to know and love, the Internet.
It's called Socks and Shoes.
Now, I want you to imagine Nassau street when Hewlett's Shoes was still on Nassau Street. Yes, I see heads nodding. Some of us remember Hewlett's Shoes. Okay, so Nassau street shoe store, and a boy of maybe around 10 years old standing in front of the shoe store, barefoot, staring at the shoes in the window.
And along comes an older woman. I like to say an older woman, because I like to picture myself.
And she sees the boy.
She sees that he's barefoot and staring at the window. She goes up to him and says, boy, what are you doing?
I'm praying and wishing that God will send me shoes.
So she takes the boy's hand and she marches him into the shoe store.
And the clerk, seeing this and seeing the barefoot boy, guesses immediately what's going on.
Will you bring us some socks, please?
And he runs to the back to get some socks.
And as he brings the socks to her, she whispers, and a basin with some water and a towel, which he dutifully does.
And when he brings it, she marches the boy to the back of the store, where no one will see as she washes his feet.
And after she washes them and dries them, she puts on a fresh pair of socks.
And then she leads the boy back to the main part of the store, where the clerk, who has figured everything out, has also sized up the boy's size of foot and brought out several pairs of shoes.
And they proceed to try to have the boy try them on. And one pair fits perfectly.
And so the woman takes the boy's hand again and goes to pay for the shoes.
Now, this is before Venmo, PayPal, credit cards.
She has to pay cash.
She goes to a cashier, a cash register. Imagine her wallet to pay for the shoes. And while she's paying, she looks down at the boy and says, you'll be more comfortable now, won't you?
And the boy, with tears in his eyes, looks back up at her and says, are you God's wife?
Angels and God's wife work in many, many ways.
Well, I am a wife. And in fact, my precious other is here, Charlie.
And he knows this story because he's in it.
Whoa. Warning. Warning.
Now, this past summer, some of the young folk here went on the Camino in Spain.
And I also had the privilege of doing part of that Camino. I didn't walk anywhere near as far as those young people.
And I went in April, so it wasn't so hot. I wasn't going swimming the way you guys were.
But I did come when the folks who went on the Camino gave their remarks about what it was like, and it was so heartwarming, it was everything that I had also experienced.
It is just such a life changing experience to go on the Camino to Compostelo in Spain.
I wanted to make up a story about it, but I found that I couldn't do it.
At least not yet.
Somehow, I guess it's still too new. Even though I went in April and even though I listened to the group that went in the summer.
But I had the good fortune of what we can call a pre Camino.
I went on a long walk, a pilgrimage walk in Sardinia with Charlie.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: And.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: This is the story that I created to go with that experience.
A friend of mine sent me an article about the rarest pasta in the world.
It's called Sous Filindu, the threads of God.
And it at that time was made by only one woman in Sardinia.
The recipe and way to make it passed down in her matrilineal line for generations.
She would knead the dough to just the right consistency and then stretch it over a mold, a rattan circular mold. Stretch it to 256 threads over this mold and then let the pasta dry in the sun.
And when the pasta was dried, it would come off the mold and it would be broken up into smaller bits and served in a bowl of golden broth two times a year only to pilgrims who made a 20 mile trek overnight to get to a sanctuary, San Francesco di Lula, where they will be served this pasta.
Now, the legend that went with it was just as strange.
Supposedly, in the 16th century, there was a bandit named Francesco who was accused of murder.
And when he was acquitted, he was so thankful that he went running into the wilds of Sardinia, the Barbagia.
And ran and ran until he collapsed. And when he collapsed, he swore that he would build a sanctuary to his namesake, St. Francis.
And so San Francesco di Lula became this little church that was created. And two times a year, pilgrims marched overnight to this little godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere to have this bowl of pasta.
When I told Charlie about this, he said, we must go.
Well, that directive reminded me of a folktale.
There are many versions of this folktale, but my favorite is from Eastern Europe, a Jewish version.
And I like to tell it about a man named Avram.
Poor man, many children, wife, lives in a tiny village, godforsaken, like San Francesco di Lula. And he has a very boring job.
So boring that he spends his days dreaming.
And he has a favorite dream.
And his dream is to someday hold a great feast.
And he imagines the feast, how it would be. He would be sitting at the head of the table. There'd be a long, long table. And all his friends and family would be lining the table, and the table would be groaning with food. And everyone around him would be laughing and singing and telling jokes and telling stories and hoisting mugs and imagining. This is what kept Avram happy and how he made it through the day.
One night, Avram had a dream.
A very strange dream. Avram had never gone more than five miles from where he lived. But in this dream, there appeared to him a castle and a bridge that led to the opening, the main door of the castle. And while Avram is staring in his dream at this vision, he hears a voice.
And the voice says, avram, go to the castle in the capital city.
There you will find a treasure.
You must go.
Avram wakes up. He thinks, what is this? But he doesn't say anything. And he goes through the day thinking about this dream.
And of course, the next night, the dream comes back and he wakes up with a start. And his wife wakes up next to him and says, avram, what is it?
So he tells her the dream, and she says, avram, you're such a daydreamer. It's no surprise you would have us a weird dream at night. Now the sun's coming up. Get up and go to work.
Which he does.
But the third night, the dream comes back again.
And in folk tales, as in life, something that happens three times, oh, you must pay attention to that.
And so Avram gets up, tells his wife to make some bread and cheese for him, pulls out his boots where the soles are flapping, and he has to tie the soles to the top of the boots, kisses his children, kisses his wife, and starts out to follow this dream.
And he walks and he walks and he walks.
Sometimes there's a helper, a farmer coming by with a hay cart who gives him a ride for a little bit.
Sometimes a kind farmer's wife gives him a little bread for the journey.
Or the farmer and his wife say, you can sleep in our barn tonight so you don't have to sleep outside under the stars.
And Avram just keeps walking and he walks and he walks until one day he comes out through a woods and there it is, exactly as it was in his dream.
The castle, the bridge.
And Avrom walks to the base of the bridge and he sees guards going back and forth over the bridge.
And he looks around at the base.
No treasure.
And of course he didn't have a shovel.
What's he going to do?
Maybe I'll have another dream, he says to himself. And so that night he sleeps at the base of the bridge.
But there's no dream the second night either.
And on the third morning.
Well, Charlie and I also prepared for our journey the way Avrem did. We didn't take bread and cheese, but we had a travel agent who helped us get to Nauru in Sardinia, which is not a place where many travelers go. In fact, we met one other couple who spoke English. I think they were from the uk, no other Americans.
And we had a hotel where luckily the concierge there spoke some English. And when we told him what we were going to do, he had heard of this pilgrimage walk.
He'd never done it, he thought we were crazy.
We even went to the information center in Nauru.
Person there hadn't heard of it at all.
But the hotel clerk was kind enough to get us taxi ride to go to the piazza where everyone was supposed to start, this Camino. So it's like 11, 11:30 at night.
We're in this piazza, people are coming and crowding in. And I'm looking around and I'm thinking, we are the only English speakers here, we are going to need help.
So I looked around the piazza and I saw standing there a woman who was about my size and about my age.
And she was standing near a man who looked like a professional hiker. He had the Patagonia type jacket, he had the backpack, he had the boots, he had everything.
And I thought, we have to meet him.
So Charlie and I walked over and in my broken Italian, I explained who we were.
And Franca was thrilled that Due Americani were going to do this Camino.
And so she introduced us to Giovanni and we chatted as best we could. We went to the mass that started the Camino, which was all in Sardinian, so of course didn't understand a word of it.
But at midnight, the Camino takes off, and as we're leaving the church, Franca grabs my arm and says, stay with Giovanni.
Wise old woman's words, which I have to tell you. We didn't so much stay with Giovanni as Giovanni stayed with us because he had done this Camino before. He had batteries, he had candy, he had everything that we possibly could have needed. And more importantly, he knew the way. Because when we decided to do this, I found lots of articles about the pasta and how rare it was and everything, but I could find nothing about the root, nothing about what kind of shoes we needed, what we were going to find.
Finally, my youngest brother, I don't know where he found this friend who had access to a blog that talked about the Camino that again, thank you, Google, we could translate into English. And so I knew that part of this Camino went through the pastures of the cows and the sheep. I mean, you're going in the hinterlands, in the. The wilds, and it's not well marked.
So Giovanni was our guide and he was able to kind of keep us going because, you know, at first everybody starts off together, but then it starts to stretch out.
There are volunteers who help with this Camino. In fact, when we started off, we hadn't gone more than a mile when there was a man with the trunk of his car open and he was serving shots of espresso so we could go on our way.
And there were several points where there were bonfires and they were handing out water.
And this was all volunteer, but it was true. After about six miles of going on road, we went into the wilds, and it was rocky. It was the tracks that the people brought their sheep from, you know, place to place, and the cows from pasture to pasture.
And it was not well marked.
And you could hear the cows in the distance and the donkeys braying as they heard us coming along.
And there were no city lights, right? We were in the middle of nowhere. But the stars.
The stars were magnificent.
And as we went along, I heard this really strange sound, and I didn't know what it could be. Giovanni told me it was a fox barking.
Now we have foxes here in Princeton. There's one that lives at the university. Have you seen it? I've seen it several times. I'VE never heard it bark.
It's a really weird sound.
We walked and walked overnight. We're walking and walking.
And you can't stop too long at the bonfires because if you start sweating, you're going to get cold and it's going to be hard to get warm again.
Kept going. And then you could see day was coming.
And the light, you know, the beautiful colors of the sunrise were coming up and the stars were beginning to fade. And we thought, oh, we're almost there. And sure enough, there was another place where they were serving espresso.
And we were on the road again. We had come out from all the wilds and we thought for sure we were almost there.
But we still had several more miles to go.
Well, Avram, the third day, woke up and heard a voice from the top of the bridge.
You there.
This is the third day you've been hanging around here. What is your business? Guards, bring him to me. Was the captain of the guards.
What was Avram going to say?
Well, the truth was strange enough.
So he told the truth.
And when the captain of the guard heard what.
What a fool you are.
Oh, well, if I believed in dreams like that, you would see me going to some village who knows where it is, and looking for some fellow named Avram. And when I found him, going into his house and digging under his stove and finding a treasure under his stove. But do you see me leaving my post and going on some full errand.
You've worn out a lot of shoe leather for nothing.
Avram thanked the captain of the guards, turned around and started walking for home.
He walked and he walked and he walked. Sometimes he got a ride on a hay cart. Sometimes he got some extra food. Sometimes he slept in the barn. But finally he made it back to his village. And when the people saw him coming back, oh, a great shout went up because nobody ever expected to see him again.
And his children went running to him and kissed them all. His wife was so happy to see him, he kissed her. And then he went into his house and got a shovel and started digging under the stove.
His wife was sure he was crazy then.
But he kept digging and he dug and he dug and he dug and felt something hard and he dug all around it, and it was a box.
And he lifted out the box and he opened it up and there indeed was a treasure.
Now Avram paid all his debts, took care of his family.
And then he made his daydream come true.
He held a great feast. And he sat at the head of the table and the Table was groaning with food, and he had his family and friends on either side, and they were laughing and singing and telling stories and jokes and having a great time. And Avram looked at all of this, and he said to himself, this.
This is the real treasure.
When we got to San Francesco di Lula, we at first were given some coffee and biscuits, and then we were led into a room where, indeed, dished out, was that golden bowl of broth with the threads of God inside.
And everyone who had walked. Oh, I forgot to tell you. When you first get to San Francesco di Lula, you can wash your feet, warm water in basins. Charlie did it.
He was brave enough to take his boots off.
I was not. I was sure that if I took my boots off, I'd never get them back on again.
And then you got the coffee, and then you got the biscuits. And then you went into this room where there were long tables, and everyone sat down and the pilgrims were served the threats of God.
And it was delicious.
But I think Anything after walking 8 hours overnight would have tasted great.
And I would like to tell you that I had a great revelation as I sipped my Sioux Filan dew. But that's not the truth.
Now. It wasn't until many months later, when I was thinking about that Camino and thinking about Avram, that I realized that this is the treasure.
This is the treasure we seek. Being together, sharing stories, and being happy and peaceful together.
Well, I'm so happy to see so many familiar faces today and so thrilled that Nassau Presbyterian invited me back to tell stories.
This, for me, is a great Advent experience, and I'm always thrilled to come and tell here.
I would like to leave you with one last little story as a closer, and then I think we'll have a few minutes if anyone has any comments or questions.
So I told you before that I haven't been able to put together a story about the Camino to Compostela.
But in talking to a storytelling friend of mine who actually lives in Hungary, she sent me a little snippet of a story that she thought pertained.
And once again, there are many versions. It can be found on the Internet.
I don't know where she exactly found it, but it is a story that I think kind of sums up the experience of what we hope for in Advent and, of course, in the rest of the year as well.
There was a woman who was traveling, and she was climbing a mountain, and she came to a place where there was a stream of cool, clear water.
So, needing a break, she knelt down to take A drink. And when she looked into the water, she saw a precious stone.
So she reached in and she grabbed the stone and she put it in her sack.
And then she had her drink, she had her rest, and she went on her way.
Eventually, she came to the track where everyone else was going, who knows, to some city.
And she fell in with some other travelers.
And one traveler began to speak with her and confessed that he was hungry.
So she took off her sack, and she said, take what you need.
And he looked in the sack, he saw some. Some bread there.
And he saw the stone, and he knew the worth of that stone. He knew if he sold that stone, it would set him up for life.
And the woman said, take what you need.
And so he took some bread, and he took the stone, and he went on his way.
And she kept going.
But sometime later, she saw the traveler coming back her way, and she was surprised to see him.
And he faced her and held out the stone and said, I know, and you know that this stone would take.
I wouldn't have to work ever again if I sold this stone.
But what I want is what allowed you to give me this stone with such joy?
Teach me how to give like that.
And so the woman and the traveler went on their way.
So I leave you with that to ponder as we come to the end of Advent and the year ahead. Thank you.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much. There's so much to think about and ruminate about, and I hope we take the stone that you've given us today and are able to give it out to those we love and those we don't love.
Okay, so are there any comments or questions that you would like to share?
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Maria, when did you start writing your own stories?
Have you done that a long time? I have not, and I actually only have about three that I've kind of tried. We call it braiding, where you take a folktale and a life experience and put them together. But that was a fun thing to do.
I just would like to say thank you. It was lovely.
What are some of the other parts of the world that you've found, stories that especially appeal to you to learn.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Besides the ones that you had time to tell today?
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Oh, yes.
Well, I've traveled to Japan, so I've been looking at a lot of Japanese stories, and I have looked at some from different places in Africa, Nigeria, tried to add some of those.
I've looked at some Australian stories, but I don't tell a lot of stories with animals in them. And a lot of their stories have animals in them. So, you know, I'm still searching, but, you know, try to hop around a little bit more to kind of round out. Because a lot of the stories that I'm attracted to, of course, have variations in all these other places in the world. So part of the fun is finding a theme that I like and then looking at all the different variations, how it makes itself felt in other parts of the world.
Do you have a favorite story? Oh, well, you know this answer. It's the one I'm telling. Right.
I would say that the Camino Story is an especial favorite because it was so much fun to put it together.
So that one is a special one.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: So one more comment, and then we gotta open the doors and call it the end.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: You may have spoke about this a little at the beginning, but I'm just curious, where else you share your stories, where you found. Does that end up being with friends and family, or is it kind of to audiences like this?
Well, audiences like this mainly in some schools, at the library, any place they ask me, I'm happy to come and share stories. Yeah.
Thank you.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you again, and God bless you.
If you didn't sign in, I sort of sent that around in a bit of a chaotic way.
So some of you, this front row, may not have signed in. So we need to keep that data.
So please put your signature there. And if you have any questions or want to comment, express your gratefulness, please talk to Maria. Okay. All right.
