It All Goes Back to John Wesley

Remember the bride's father in "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding" who said, "Give me a word. . . any word . . . and I show you how the word is Greek?"

Well, for several years, I've been known to follow a similar monologue. . "It all goes back to Wesley!  Give me any person in American history and culture . . . any person . . . and I will show you how that person relates to John Wesley."

I haven't been stumped yet -- although I must admit, I've had to hop and stretch a few times to get there. 

My son, Wes, has been on a mission to discover a dead end street, but he hasn't prevailed yet.

Just recently, he wrote the following list on a pizza napkin, handed it to me and said, "OK Dad, show me how these people go back to John Wesley."

• Stephen King, the suspense novelist
• Stephen Hawking, the scientiest
• Slash, the rock star
• Jim Henson, the Muppeteer
• Howard Taft, the president
• Edgar Allen Poe, the 19th century horror author and poet
• Mother Teresa, the saint.

Sometime over the next week, on this blog, I will reveal to Wes and the world, a direct pathway from each of these individuals, to the noted Anglican parson, and namesake of our beloved church, John Wesley (despite the fact that Stephen Hawking and Mother Teresa are not Americans.)