Story

Last week, I was in a phone conversation with some friends in Denver, and I was sharing some of our desires for enabling and nurturing creative community…and in comparing notes, one of my friends began sharing of his long-standing interest in the power of storytelling, and how he wanted to see that form of creativity encouraged, especially in young people–to see Christ’s love revealed in our ability to write and create stories.

Jesus used the art of story quite a bit to convey the truths He wanted people to learn. We call them “parables.” But lots of stories aren’t fiction. In fact, the Bible is filled with story–the drama, comedy, tragedy and triumph in the lives of real people. And through these narratives, God reveals Himself.

This got me thinking, not specifically about the art of writing/telling stories, but more about the fact that stories are such a huge part of our existence. Not just our mythology or folklore–our very lives are in the thick of the plot. We are each of us living out our own story.

A number of years ago, one of the television network news programs had a regular human interest segment called “Everyone has a story.” In it, the traveling correspondent would go to a town, pick a random number in the local phone book, and call the number. Whoever answered the phone would be the subject of the piece. You’d think this would be a boring segment, but it wasn’t. Without fail, when the person on the other end of the phone agreed to be interviewed on camera, their life story would be captivating. Drama, tragedy, victory, accomplishment, loss, betrayal–it was all there, in the life of every randomly-chosen individual, even the ones you’d think would be pretty humdrum. It’s surprisingly true: everyone really does have a story.

This was driven home to me yet again this past weekend, when I visited a Saturday evening gathering of another group of believers. My friend Jeff (no, not the guy from the interview, another Jeff) was talking about how we so often wish for everything in life to go our way, and wonder why God might allow suffering…and yet, even though those answers aren’t easy in coming, we can see an interesting paradox: within all our literature and mythology (which are reflections of our own existence), any story without a villain is incredibly boring.

In fact–without an adversary, without tension, without challenge, without conflict–there really is no story. By contrast, when the adversary is particularly evil, or the challenge particularly great–the story is compelling.

It all makes me think…while we question and challenge God about why, if He is truly love and truly sovereign, He would not just step in and remove all sorrow, suffering and injustice from the planet–the irony is that if God behaved in all the ways we think He should…there would be no story in our lives at all. There would be no inspiration whatsoever to spin our tales and write our myths, because there would be nothing interesting to tell. It seems that the stories in our lives–both the ones lived and the ones written about–would be dull and lifeless without that sense of tension. With no adversity, there is no such thing as victory.

In fact, I think about the range of emotions we humans have and express. Virtually every emotion and feeling we have–from joy to anger to fear to contentment–either directly or indirectly relies upon the existence of tension, conflict, or suffering. Even feelings of intense joy and ecstasy derive their meaning from the fact that the alternative is at least possible. That might sound a bit “out there”, but just consider if the only emotion you felt was “happy”, because there was no such thing as “sad”–then “happy” would lose its meaning. It would lose its color. There would be no story. It’s like we need the one as a counterweight to the other.

Now, in saying this, I certainly don’t mean to trivialize the intense suffering in the world, or suggest that nothing be done about it. I’m only saying in general that for reasons beyond my ability to grasp, in the parameters of this space/time we live in, we humans seem to need challenge in order to live our story. Adversity, suffering, conflict, challenge–they are all describing the tension that is uncomfortably necessary to the furthering of the plot.

I’ll take it one step further: I think that not only does every story need conflict, but we need story in order to survive. I think without story, we would die. Perhaps that’s why everybody has a story.

I think it is this need for challenge in us that drives some people to be daredevils, to risk life and limb on purpose by jumping out of airplanes and such. I used to think such people had a death wish, but maybe for some of them it’s the opposite. If you ask why they do such things, they usually answer, “Because it makes me feel alive.” Thankfully, I am not the kind of person who needs to jump out of an airplane to feel alive. Nor would I recommend that anyone turn foolhardy and throw themselves off a cliff so they can really live those few moments before hitting the ground. But you get the idea: our propensity to look death in the face in order to feel alive–that’s evidence that conflict is necessary to our story.

I’m pondering our own story just now–the fact that our particular story is taking a remarkable turn in our decision to move to Denver. It isn’t tragic, nor would I wish it so (quite the opposite, in fact); but it is certainly an adventure, laced with uncertainty and the possibility of peril. A few years ago, our story was incredibly hard, and yes, we were suffering greatly. And we were given a reprieve, a victory, and a season of rest. We definitely needed a season where there wasn’t any conflict; we needed the rest. But we always expected that one day, God would re-engage us in the ongoing story in this town we’ve been living in.

But for whatever reason, that re-engagement didn’t happen. The second wind we were waiting for never came. I look at our story, and I realize our hearts were turned to another place because the story here turned stale without conflict, and we began to die on the inside. For reasons within the realm of God’s wisdom, He detached us from the story here in Tulsa. And after we had rested, we became dry and desperate. So uncomfortable, in fact, that once we had decided on Denver as a new place, and the questions of how to get there and how to function seemed to remain unanswered, it got to a point where it didn’t matter: we had to get there some way. So we have run into the uncertainty–no, that’s not accurate–we have hurled ourselves into the uncertainty. It’s uncomfortable, and our emotions have run the gamut. But do you want to know something amazing?….We feel more alive in this moment than we have in the past four years. No kidding. We’re not “suffering” in the same way others do, or in the ways we have done in the past. But the tension has brought our story back to life. That is the power of story, and that’s how much we need the tension to drive our story.

I know this is just rambling, and I’m in way over my head as far as figuring all this out. But if I were to just make a guess, I’d say that while I believe with all my heart that God is good and wants the best for us all, it is within His wisdom that He cannot remove suffering from this world–at least not at this point in the story. But neither does He abandon us to it. He does not remove the valley of the shadow of death; but in His grace and mercy, He will walk us through it.

I do know this much: a timeline without a story would be the closest thing to hell on earth that I could imagine.

Wayward Son

Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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