When my friend Ed was 11 years old he decided to climb out his bedroom window with his cousin and sit on the roof.

Arriving home, his mother and aunt pulled up in the front driveway, gazed up at the roof, and saw their two sons happily perched on the steep incline, nearly two stories above the concrete driveway.

"Jacob, you get back into the house immediately!" Shouted Ed's aunt, as his embarrassed cousin scampered toward the open window, "Jacob, you could fall off that roof and break your neck in a heartbeat! What's gotten into your head?"

That left Ed sitting alone on the roof as his mother looked up at him. He waved to her and then she asked nonchalantly, "Ed, where's your coat?"

Of course I could have just told you that my friends' mother had a parenting style that encouraged independence and maturity, but chances are you will remember that lesson much better after hearing this story.

In Sunday's gospel Jesus declares that he always told important lessons to his followers through parables, through stories.

Human beings are narrative creatures, meaning makers, who look for patterns and get through life by imitation.

Of course, the most important stories are the ones we tell ourselves.

Psychologists say we're not very good at this. Many of us endure excessive stress because we tell ourselves we're not smart enough, good looking enough, talented enough, or rich enough, etc which leads to stories that add to our discontent.

One of the fruits of the gospel is that it gives us much healthier, authentic, and more life-giving stories.

Jesus tells us that we are light, we are salt, we are chosen, and we are adored. Our narrative is not one of defeat, condemnation, and damnation, but of abundance, caregiving, and provision.

Our challenge, is to make God's story our story, to chase away that untruthful and false self-talk and work toward a more authentic depiction of our story as a people who live in God.

Coming out of covid, we have a rare opportunity to make ourselves different, to live more fully into our authentic selves, as defined by the God of courage and love, not out of the fears and haunting frailties told us by our lesser angels.

How might we choose this day, this week, this summer, to talk to ourselves more kindly and more truthfully, as we move to see ourselves as God sees us?