-Why we Need a Story
¹“The world is changed. I taste it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.” – Galadriel, in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring movie.
The world has indeed changed. We live in a world that is distinctly postmodern. So, what does this have to do with our dragons? (Remembering that dragons are the dry walls that we put up to keep out enchantment and magic in our day to day lives.)
-The Divided Times-
In ² Postmodernism 101, Heath White divides history into pre-modern, modern, and postmodern. If you are over the age of 35, you likely grew up in a more modern environment. Modernism generally believes in progress, and that we can truly know everything. Facts matter. Stories – not so much. And what came from this? STEAM! Science, technology, engineering and applied mathematics became the ultimate goal in work environments and in schools. Science was power. Facts became supreme. Things were more black and white- either it is a fact or it is not. We can make the world better by figuring out what is true.
Beginning about 100 years ago, though, – first in Europe, after World War One – faith in progress and facts started to die. Today, we’ve joined the postmodern wave. For the postmodernist, story is very important. As White says, “postmoderns have lost faith in the idea of objective verification (facts). Instead, they focus on the persuasive power of the stories we tell”. Are we not surrounded and bombarded constantly with larger than life stories? Two excellent examples of this are the rise of huge movie franchises that tell a story – like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Along with the rise in popularity of dystopian fiction, particularly young adult fiction. The incredibly popular Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Divergent books and movies are dystopian. Indeed, movies in general began as modernism was losing its hold – an interesting coincidence? Today, story is viewed as more important. The youth of today generally believe that the world is NOT getting better. Maybe we can make sense of our lives and have hope in Jedi or super-heroes. Or we can make a small difference ourselves by the stories we tell. Maybe we can’t – and the future is pretty bleak.
-The Divided Church-
Into this world – that is largely skeptical of truth and not of stories – we bring them to church. A church that generally believes the same story but is divided into factions over facts and ideals. We talk to them in a language that many consider overly religious- without explanations. We may sell them fire insurance, but do we give them hope? Have we too often ignored the enchanting and magical aspects of religion in favor of factual classes? Or have we also gone to the other extreme of placating people by removing all of the hard parts? Have we said that feeling your relationship with God is more important than knowing the facts of what you believe? Both extremes leave us without hope. There are plenty of dissenting voices in this merger of modern and post-modern. We unconsciously put dragons in place that obscure that WE HAVE the ultimate story. We have the ONLY true hope. We KNOW where history is going…where the world will end up. There is no lack of adventure OR fact in this story.
-Blending the Divide-
In our homes and churches right now, can we have a beautiful blend of the modern and postmodern? Is it possible to come together when there is so much to divide? Homes and churches have been at pivotal and crucial divides in society more times than we could count on our hands and toes. Yet the church and family structures are still here, still standing. The world seems so fraught with tension that it might crack, but they survived then and we’ll survive now.
This does not, by any means, give us a free pass to ignore the shifts. In fact, ignoring the shifts makes us look all the more foolish. As if we are in It’s a Wonderful Life and we’re dancing the night away blissfully unaware that a jilted suitor has pulled the gym floor out from under us so that we end up floundering in a pool. There is a lot of heavy lifting to be done. Figuring out our family and church structure while upholding our values is complicated. We are stronger when we walk in that tension and work together.
Walking in tension is miserable unless there is some hope and some enchantment to light the way. What can we do to tear down the dragon barriers in our own lives and embrace the enchantment? The dragons seem impossible to kill. Finding balance while also living in tension seems like a contradiction in terms. Here, though, lies the beauty of Lewis’ analogy for our circumstances. You can’t take down dragons without a) acknowledging how people have done it in the past and b) knowing that the stories are true.
-Telling Stories is Dragon Slaying-
Here is how we propose to start to take down those dragons (walls) that block out the magic in life on both the home and church fronts…
1) Recognize that our everyday mundane lives can be magical and are telling a story to those around us.
How are we portraying Jesus’ love (a magical thing) in our daily lives? Richard Stearns left his corporate life behind to become the president of World Vision. He encourages us all to look at what we are doing with our day to day lives in ³ The Hole in Our Gospel. “We must move beyond an anemic view of our faith as something only personal and private, with no public dimension, and instead see it as the source of power that can change the world. ” Our everyday lives are telling a story. “What has God given you? Moses had a stick… Mother Teresa possessed a love for the poor; Billy Graham, a gift for preaching; and Joni Eareckson Tada, a disability. What did they have in common? A willingness to let God use whatever they had, even when it didn’t seem very useful.” Jesus story is all about love. Bob Goff in his book ¹ª Love Does talks about how important it is for us to understand that while Jesus’ love is messy, sacrificial and sometimes scary- it is also more needed in our world and more simple than we often make it out to be. “Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving… Expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light.” We can find and express that love daily.
2) Acknowledge what we really know about the story we believe.
If we do not know both the facts and the overarching story ourselves, how are we supposed to share it with those we teach? This is a common problem we face in our Western culture. David Platt address this in his book ²ª Radical. “We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is Biblical.” Jen Hatmaker shares her revelation about this in her book ³ª For the Love as well. “Some values and perspectives and promises I attributed to God’s own heart only worked in my context, and I’m no theologian, but surely that is problematic. There is a biblical benchmark I now use. -If it isn’t also true for a poor, single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long.”Has our theology been tested? Can it stand up to that measure? Are the same truths and promises of God that we carry around also true for our poor, sick, and enslaved brothers and sisters in Christ?
One excellent resource for learning and teaching is ¹¹The Bible Project. These guys are awesome storytellers. This video is about the overarching story of the Bible. This video, from the same series, is about the different literary styles of the Bible. They have videos on themes as well as on the individual books of the Bible. Studying and teaching the story is a privilege.
3) Understand how to engage other storytellers with love- sharing that light together.
If we take into consideration our first step- acknowledging that we are representing Jesus to the world, than how we listen and argue is of grave importance. We know that even amongst people you agree with- there will be moments of discord. Marriage can be representative of this. Tim Keller in his book ²²The Meaning of Marriage talks about how important learning how to disagree is. “Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.” This is something we appreciate personally because we all disagree on so much even within our immediate family. We probably agree more on movies than we do theology. Being able to be open and honest with each other creates more secure relationships. Henry Cloud is an expert on boundaries and relationships. In his book ³³Safe People he says, “This is one of the marks of a truly safe person: they are confrontable.” As Christians we are exhorted in the old and new testaments to share love and listen to wisdom. Setting healthy boundaries is, of course, a huge part of that!
4) Embrace how powerfully impactful hearing others stories and sharing our own stories (testimonies) can be.
˜¹I am Second is the movement that really brought this truth home to me. On their website they say, “We believe in the power of a story well told. The stories of real people and real lives, beautifully broken, human stories. Each tell of a different journey and a different struggle. But all tell the story of hope. We believe the story of hope can change your life.” Sometimes our mistakes can help others see the road more clearly. Brene Brown in her book ˜²Daring Greatly talks about how and why we share our stories, specifically as it relates to shame. “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” So not only can sharing our stories be a powerful tool but listening can as well. Hearing someone else’s story can be meaningful to us and encourage them.
5) In all areas we want to embrace the magical on a daily basis.
I think ¯¹H.G. Wells says it best, “We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.” There are miraculous, spiritual things that happen every day. Spiritual things that we can choose to see as ordinary. We cannot understand or explain every aspect of miracles and so they scare us. But if we expect to tear down dragons, we have to be able to look fear in the face and accept it as reality. They happen whether we choose to see them or not, but are our lives not made richer by not only acknowledging them but by being thankful for them? It changes our thought process when we are daily thankful for the little, bright things and makes it easier to see life’s enchantments.
And of course, how can we talk at all about storytelling without referencing one of the greatest story quotes from The Two Towers… ¯²“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something.” This story we have, it means everything.
Next instalment– Why do kids need the whole story? And how do we tell them?
Sources:
¹ The Fellowship of the Ring. (Osborne, B; Jackson, P; Walsh, F; Sanders, T. (Producers), & Jackson, P. (Director). (2001).”The Fellowship of the Ring”. United States: New Line Cinema.
² Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian. Heath White. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, 2006.
³ The Hole In Our Gospel: What does God expect of us? The answer that changed my life and might just change the world. Richard Stearns. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2014.
¹ª Love Does
²ª Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. David Platt. Multnomah, Colorado Springs, 2010
³ª For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards. Jen Hatmaker. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2015
¹¹ The Bible Project: www.thebibleproject.com
²² The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God. Tim Keller. Penguin, New York, 2012
³³ Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1995.
˜¹ I am Second: www.Iamsecond.com
˜² Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Brene Brown. Penguin Random House, New York, 2012.
¯¹ Well, H.G. Quoted in Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Christmas Miracles: 101 Stories of Holiday Hope and Happiness. Amy Newmark, ed. Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cos Cob, 2017.
¯² The Two Towers. (Osborne, B; Jackson, P; Walsh, F. (Producers), & Jackson, P. (Director). (2002).”The Two Towers”. United States: New Line Cinema.
Written by the Hobbit and Elf
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