Barrington Bunny's story

"A good story keeps working on you," Pastor Roger Dykstra told yesterday's literary lunch-goers, and the story he read, Barrington Bunny, certainly did just that.

Dykstra, the lead pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Forks, read this seemingly simple Martin Bell story--one he first heard as high school student---about a bunny in search of companionship on Christmas Eve. Barrington, the lone bunny in the forest, searches for a Christmas party. He's unable to find a party he can join and is about to lose hope when a wolf explains to him that all the animals in the forest are his family, something that prompts him to find unique gifts for the other animals.

Spoiler Alert: After Dykstra finished the story, he joked that it took him "eight times to read before he could read it without crying." Certainly there were no tears from anyone you'd know at Literary Lunches yesterday.  ;)

Dykstra said something about Barrington Bunny that will keep "working on"  those who heard him: "I believe that sometimes you being you is exactly what the world needs."