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Don't Settle for an Uninspiring Story

10/14/2013

3 Comments

 
Speaking truth to yourself is fine and good, but telling yourself a story that opens your heart, fires your imagination, and inspires a new way of seeing is far better. Don't settle for an uninspiring story.

Created in God's image, we are story tellers. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are composing narratives all the time. We can't help it because we bear the image of the divine story teller. The question is not are we making up stories, but how good and true are those stories?

We are tempted to defer to those who are gifted story tellers, creative types -- poets, novelists, clowns. Certainly, there are some who are called to tell our collective story, to reveal truths that can only be told with the poetic imagination. But we put ourselves at risk if we fore-go the God given gift and responsibility of story telling.

First of all, we make sense of the confusing and often contradictory facts of life by placing them in the context of a story. If we are passive and fail to actively re-story our experience with God, we are stuck with the meta-narrative* that we received from our family of origin and the society within which we were formed. In fact, the better the story we tell, the closer we are to the truth. The truth I'm referring to here is not simple scientific facts, which can be stated outside the context of story, but the meaning and significance of ones life.

(The truth of God's presence and activity in history could not be told in simple propositional statements, tempted as we have been in our scientific age to reduce "the mysteries of the faith to objects of affirmation or negation when they ought to be the object of contemplation." (Weil) In scripture the truth is revealed in a myriad of metaphors, symbols, parables -- some told, some lived. The power of the kingdom of heaven lies not in force, but in being an alternative to the story of empire.)

Secondly, we come to be known by the telling of our story. Which has the double benefit of saving us from loneliness and from self delusion. The more authentically we tell our story to those who have proven worthy to hold it, the more truly we are known -- which is itself profoundly healing -- and the less likely we are to have delusions about our motives and capacities.

Lastly, if we are to obey the primary commandment to love God with our whole heart, and our neighbor as ourselves -- and not merely act as if we love -- we must see ourselves inside the greater story of God, the good news of God's presence and activity in everything, especially God's image in our neighbor, who, as often as not, because of our poor vision, looks to us like "the least of these." My story in your story, your story in mine, our story inside the good news of God's story.


*Meta Narrative: The narrative about your narrative. The meaning of your experience imposed from outside rather than discovered or authored by you.
3 Comments
Freddie
10/15/2013 02:41:55 am

...the story of empire...
uhm, I wish more could be said about this.
Does empire equal the world of appearance?
My meager empire composed of people, places and things, my own mania? My own narrative? The way things "should" be according to my preferences? I wish you could eLABORate more...

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David
10/15/2013 03:37:56 am

Yes, empire includes the things you listed. But in this context, I was thinking more of the powers that seem to direct the course of the world. They appear to be inexorable. But the KOH takes the same facts and creates a completely different outcome without the use of force and coercion.
Our preferences might be considered a tool in the hand of the coercive forces of the world...

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Jeffrey
10/15/2013 11:25:50 am

Its funny, I've been reading a book on my shelf in recent weeks entitled "Telling Yourself the Truth." And there does seem to be something instantly freeing about discerning and embracing truth. But it does seem that what you are saying appeals to the heart and the imagination and the real myth. Despite all of his apologetic works, this also seems to be the key legacy for CS Lewis. Thank you for saying these things, my friend.

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