Plague Journal (68): Tell me a story

Everybody has a narrative. It's the story we tell about ourselves. It has many facets, and yet it is condensable. If we were to write it down, it might be a novel, or it might be a haiku. 

We carry it around in our heads. We feel uncomfortable when someone begins to question it because deep inside we know it's based on half-truths at best. It was always a self-serving story. That was its purpose. Sometimes we went so far as to call it "my truth." Sometimes we said, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Self-dealing is our stock and trade. For long periods of time our narrative serves us pretty well in this regard, but then sometimes something happens that brings the narrative to a breaking point. Let's say part of my narrative was that I loved my Dad but he didn't love me. What a burden to grow up with. With this story you could justify your many failings. But then your Dad dies and at the funeral everyone is weeping and you're asked to say a few words. Your narrative is cracking, it can't bear the strain. You can't rely on it here. You're weeping too and you tell people you just lost your best friend. It's your new story, and it works. Everyone empathizes with you and your grief seems the most profound of anyone there.

So yes, we're pretty good at this. We are the story-making animal.  But some people are simply always telling their story, over and over to anyone who will listen (we are the self-depicting animal), while certain other people are always asking others to tell their story (but that's a much smaller cohort). Not that they don't have a story of their own, but maybe they've just grown tired of it. In the end self-dealing can seem like such a paltry thing. Get me out of my head, we pray. My head is not particularly truthful.

What we need is to discover the overarching narrative, the story of stories. Something bigger than ourselves. But this megastory can't come from us. It is not something we impose upon the sky. It is the sky. That is, if it exists at all.

If it exists at all, it is the story where I am not king. I am not brave in this story. I do not defeat the dragon, save the child, cross the trackless waste, build the hospital, or speak truth to power. Nor do I ever overcome that one glaring weakness. I do not come home to cheering crowds. It is not about me.

When Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the earth," these may well have been the most explosive words ever uttered. When he said, "The first shall be last, and the last first," he was exploding all our narratives. We cannot shoehorn ourselves into his megastory via convenient self-depictions. He sees through us. He silences our silly narratives. 

The only thing to do now is to listen. Jesus, tell me a story.