In the EPIC Prologue we talked about story, and how life – our life and the life of those around us – is best interpreted through the lens of a story. In fact, understanding the fullness of the gospel story – of God’s story – takes on a broader, more powerful look and feel if I step away from what I know and experience, and ask “what is going on in this ‘larger story’ God is telling?”
Take Away Questions: Consider the stories you love. Your favorite books, movies, plays. What about that story interests you so? Is there a character with whom you identify? Ask God to reveal to you why that story means so much to you. What does that story reveal about what my desires are? What parts of that story borrow from your story God?
NOTE: This post is a follow up to a small group we’re leading. This goes with our first official week into the EPIC series by John Eldredge, where we talked about story as a whole and watched John introduce the idea of life being best interpreted through the lens of story.
I’ve been amazed how many stories I’ve heard in the last few days. Sometimes I just take story for granted, which is quite easy to do, simply because it’s so normal. Yes- telling stories is a normal, if not THE normal means of communication for humankind.
Having two very distinct “jobs” I see both sides of human expression. In the world of software development, story is the basis of any new initiative- it’s someone’s story of anticipation or of pain that creates the need for new programs or enhancements to existing ones. However, most of development work is very dry, bullet-point details, and straight-to-the-point with extreme rigidity. It reads like a list of rules and regulations with little to no context. This type of expression is void of meaning and is merely “academic.”
On the other hand, when I connect with people for photography, it is completely about story. In fact, that’s what I want to help people do- provide images that help augment and re-tell the way a story actually unfolded. It’s an absolute expression of story!
Just this week my family ran into a friend at Target (great place to run into people, you know?) Rick and Caleb told me they were just at another store and they picked up some bead board.
Now if they just told me the cold hard facts, I would know the details for sure. But without the story behind it, I would be totally lost. I have no idea what “bead board” is. Instead, they told me their story, and it made so much more sense.
Life is told in story!
So the next time you talk to anyone- you turn on the radio, you run into someone at the store- ask yourself this question “what’s the story being told?”
Your life and everyone else’s will make better sense when in the context of story.
Last night I was in a small group and we talked about love being patient and love being kind. Patience is tough when we’re so busy, and when we’re busy it’s easy to be irritable and not loving. However, becoming aware of someone else’s story often takes an incredible level of patience and requires one to act with kindness.
In the spirit of The Proverb Curb, being all about slowing down and considering the finer points of life and how to live with better wisdom, I thought these three points where right on.
- To practice love I need to be more patient. That means slowing down, and requires me look around, to see with my eyes what’s going on around me. (It’s not about me.)
- To practice love I need to be more kind. This is an actionable derivative of being patient and actually becoming aware of my surroundings. Being aware of what’s going on around me, by implementing patience, I can then listen to the circumstance (those literally discernible or those that take a little more heart or spiritual intuition to figure out) of those around me.
- Follow through= kindness requires action- if there’s an opportunity to be kind- take it immediately. This was a great lesson to hear last night.
Challenge: how can you improve your patience and enhance your kindness?
Have any of you seen the new TV show “Undercover Boss?” I’ve not heard much about it, seen a preview or an episode, only that it’s a new show. But I have heard people talk about it.
If you’re like me you will listen to a conversation, even though you have no idea what the subject matter may be. That’s my fourth realization of the importance of story, and what’s going on inside of me when I don’t quite understand the whole thing.
I wonder- is this how people feel, those who don’t know what Christianity is really about? Those who don’t know the larger story?
Observations/ things I said to myself:
- This thing sounds intriguing
- Cool concept
- I think I might like that, if it is true what they are saying about it
- From what I heard of it, it would be cool to check out but my life won’t end if I don’t
- Maybe I should be at least a little familiar with the concept in case my co-workers/friends/family talk about it again
- Another show to watch? Cool or not, I don’t have time for another commitment
So I just wonder if any of the above thoughts might be played out in the minds of those around Christians. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has not heard the Gospel. Think about the state of one’s ill informed preconceptions about a story, and how important your voice is in portraying the reality of the message of the story.
Bottom Line:
My delivery may just be the difference between investigating to find out more and tuning out to ignore forever. This is one reason I think understanding and proclaiming the big picture is so important.
Two weeks ago I walked into 2 Rivers a little late (as always since we help parents drop off their kids for kid’s church.) On stage was a family I had not scene before, and what I could pick up while we took our seats was they were from Haiti. By the time we sat down, they were done on stage, but one man stayed. He picked up a guitar, someone setup a mic, and he sang a song in French. Right before someone told us the verse, but beyond that I had no context for the person of the song. That’s it.
Observations:
- I’m lost- who are you?
- I’m lost- what are you saying?
- I’m blessed – that’s cool we can have diversity
- I’m lost – without context, this interaction is not nearly as memorable as it would have been if I caught the entire story why the family was there
The second time I experienced a “disfunctional story” was watching The Hurt Locker. The film came highly recommended from a number of my guy friends, so I rented it while my wife was out of town (aka bachelor night.) The Hurt Locker chronicles the last month or so of Bravo Company, an army unit tasked with disarming bombs and IEDs in Iraq. I always enjoy films that are war related, but that’s a different topic for a different day.
What’s interesting about this observation is that I didn’t miss anything. I watched it start to finish, but I realized something maybe a day or two later. Something was missing. Although the film was done well visually and the action was intense when SFC James would walk out into an urban combat zone and start fiddling with kill-you-and-your-friends-in-an-instant explosives, I left the viewing experience satisfied with the production value but feeling a near complete disregard for the story. In short, I didn’t care much for James, Sanborn, or Eldridge.
How can you go through an entire story and not care about the main characters? Simple: you don’t know their story.
Where The Hurt Locker failed was in telling the audience more of the main characters stories. Without them, they were merely players on a stage (a very intriguing and engaging stage at that.) But until one engages in a character’s story, it’s difficult to appreciate them. It’s difficult to feel their pain. It’s difficult to understand the weight of their passions and triumphs. It’s near impossible to care deeply about them.
What can I learn as far as the larger story goes?
- Without knowing the main characters’ own stories the whole of the story is not as interesting
- Observing a person in real life from a “point-in-time” perspective can only tell me so much about who they are
- I cannot really love someone I don’t know- I can care about him from a humanity standpoint, “my fellow man” kind of love, but without knowing him in a deeper way we merely share the same space. There is a deeper love/caring for a person that requires a deeper level of intimacy.
- When you don’t truly no someone, it’s really easy to make assumptions about where they’ve been, why they are who they are today, and where they’re going to end up, all based on said assumptions.
Anyone have any other observations from The Hurt Locker or other films you’ve watched that left you feeling like you only saw part of the story?
In response to last week’s post about story I thought it would be responsible for me to pay attention to what was going on around me and look for my own examples of missing something. Over the past week I have observed 4 occasions wherein the whole story was simply not there. I’m going to share one here hoping it rings true for you, too.
Part 1: Evaruption
Last Thursday night I attended the first gathering of a new small group through our church, 2 Rivers. Since this was our first hometeam meeting our leader, Rick, thought it would be appropriate just to share our story with each other. Awkwardness aside (imagine all the emotions running through each of our minds- you’re asking me to tell what? to who? right now?), we were asked to share a little bit about our story- growing up, what we do now, our relationship to 2 Rivers, and our Jesus story, too. This was all well and good, but trying to boil down 30 or 40 something years into under 10 minutes, on the fly, is a tough task.
When the third person just started to tell his story and I think his name is Benny (sorry if you’re reading this- it takes me a few meetings to remember names), my 2 year old snuck up the stairs and escaped into the first floor. Being the responsible parent I am (lol) my natural response was to get up and capture Evalyn, take her back downstairs, and safely hand her off.
When I came back upstairs Benny was nearly finished, or so it seemed. I missed his story – almost completely. Here are some observations made and questions silently asked when I came back upstairs:
- So this guy obviously likes baseball- that’s what I remember him most talking about – his college baseball days
- Were they small talking until I came back upstairs? Was that just a sidebar? Or did he just keep going?
- Should I feel bad missing his story?
- What if I missed a crucial part of his life, and for the rest of our hometeam meetings I will be out of the loop?
- Did they all think I’m a control freak parent for not just letting Sam or Madeline come up to grab Eva?
As you can tell, a number of things fired in my brain almost simultaneously after missing part of the story. But ultimately, I have a less than half full picture of who this guy is, what he’s about, and where he came from. There is something missing, my assumptions are not adequate to fill-in-the-blanks, and until I get some answers our relationship can’t be any deeper than what I already know or than our common ground.
Most people I ask tell me that the Bible starts in Genesis. Although that is true in terms of the organization of the books and the introduction of time/space, the universe, and humanity, the Story starts long before the “genesis” of mankind. There is a beginning of the Story, a “prequel” if you will, that is seldom recognized or explained in the presentation of the Christian’s “Good News” that so many of us have heard. Without the prequel, it is very difficult to appreciate the message of the Bible, and therefore, near impossible to get our bearings in life. Without it, something is missing.
Let me start this journey by posing this question: Have you ever started watching a movie or TV show midway through the story?
Challenge: If you can’t answer the question above, then I invite you to try one of the following suggestions. To fully appreciate what we’ve lost without the prequel this experience is quite important.
- Turn on the TV right at 17 minutes past any hour to a show you’ve never seen before. Watch for 5 minutes.
- Go to the library or pick up a novel from your home book shelf you’ve never read before. Flip to page 56 and read a few pages.
- Go all out! Go to the cinema tonight, grab some popcorn, but wait until 30 minutes after the film starts to walk into the theater and sit down.
So, what was it like showing up while the story was already in progress?
One of my personal goals is to read through the Old Testament. I am reading with a particular motivation in mind: to see the larger story at work in time and space, and to learn even more about the character of the God of Judaism and Christianity. After all, what better illustrates one’s character than a look at their history?
This week I stumbled upon a chapter in the book of Deuteronomy (chapter 4) that really impacted me. It’s one of those “stop, rewind, play” kind of moments where Moses puts history into perspective, and reminds the Israelites where they’ve been, where they’re going, and how God has been a force in sustaining them through it all. Particularly relevant to the Proverb Curb mission is Moses’ attention to practical wisdom and teaching, wherein he reminds the people why the law and statutes exist, and how profitable the outcome when living them out.
