Tag Archives: Wisdom of Story

Wisdom of Story: Reflection 4 Daring to Imagine a Bigger Story

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Marc Chagall, Solitude (1933)

Marc Chagall, Solitude (1933)

So, this is the final of the Wisdom of Story reflections after working through this course with Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle Melton (reflection 3 is The Rules which is more of a poetic reflection on the content) and it ended with a profound challenge: what is a community challenge or a global story that you want to write yourself into? This was a hard question because it forced me to think of what are the things going on in my community and in the world, that breaks my heart and to pay attention to that. Where I ended up was highlighted by several conversations I have had over the past weeks and I think it is an area where I need to spend some time both reflecting and creating opportunities to imagine a different big story.

There are so many places where I have seen a growing cultural anxiety paired with malaise in the church, in the communities around us and in the nation. There are so many pieces of this: I believe that we have become addicted to anxiety, almost like a drug, by the continual presence of news and information constantly throughout our lives. Anxiety sells even if it is not an accurate representation of reality- news programs present the worst aspects of the world continually before our eyes and we believe we no longer live in a safe place, even though statistically we are significantly safer than 20 years ago. Like many I have gone through our current election cycle with a bad taste in my mouth because of the ways the candidates have been portrayed. While character matters when elections become primarily about tearing down another person’s character or even demonizing one’s opponent we all lose. I am dismayed by the loss of civility in our public square, where one whose ideas may be different from our own are not only dismissed out of hand but may even be considered ‘un-American’ and in a digital age it is easier to become a troll out to destroy the other person. We live in a polarized and anxious world where there is less of an American dream and more alternate versions of an American nostalgia for a time and place that never truly existed. We become so consumed with work, with taking care of ourselves, with the desire for the next new thing that never quite satisfies that I’m not sure we know what a good life looks like.

That is a huge bundle of tightly wound knots and so how do I begin to untangle it? Well for me it begins with understanding so I can try to imagine a different story. There is a self-reflective component: It will mean thinking critically on my own life and its incessant business and what a good life means for me. There will be a time to listen to other people’s stories and their fears and concerns as well as their hopes and dreams, which is one of the gifts of what I do. As a reflective person, it will also mean that I go back and ask questions both in reading and research but also to question some of the narratives I hear around me.  Honestly not sure where it will ultimately go or look like but I’ve got lots of questions and I’m curious enough to see where they might lead.

The Rules

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Afghan children playing soccer in front of the ruined Darul Aman Palace on the outskirts of Kabul from www.dawn.com/news/1050835

Afghan children playing soccer in front of the ruined Darul Aman Palace on the outskirts of Kabul from http://www.dawn.com/news/1050835

When we were children and the game wouldn’t go our way
We would reinvent the rules of the game so that we might win
And others around us would cry out unfair, you changed the rules
But in our childish foolishness we believed we were masters of the game
And the rules could be bent to serve our needs and wants and desires
In a world that was bound in an orbit with us at the center
 
Yet, when we were older the rules became hardened in the game of life
Others stepped in as referees ensuring that we played by some rulebook
We were never allowed to study or read but which defined the roles
We were expected to play in work, at home, in relationship and in life
And if we dared to cry out that the rules were unfair we would be penalized
For the rules couldn’t be bent to serve our wants and needs and desires
In a world that was bound in an orbit where we are not the center
 
But sometimes the game of life breaks us leaving us shattered on the field
The rules we tried to work within only served to beat us down and confine us
The game became a sentence in which we were expected to serve our term
And the referees became the warden keeping us imprisoned within our cells
For the rules were there to keep a check on our wants and needs and desires
In a world that was binds us in orbit to someone else’s sun
 
But sometimes there is wisdom in childhood in knowing the rules can change
In reinventing the rules that don’t work and ignoring the self-appointed referees
In playing a game where we might flourish and our lives matter
Where we can once again believe that we are the masters of the game
And the rules could be bent to serve our needs and wants and desires
In a world no longer forced to orbit around someone else’s star

 

The Wisdom of Story Reflection 2: Modern Crises and the Balance of Work, Rest and Play

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When I started the Wisdom of Story I had no idea that the session on act 2 of the story, the part of the story where the conflict comes in and changes things around would coincide with an actual set of minor crises (predominantly around a building project at my congregation) and the stress that would be added by that to an already full schedule. So I am thankful for thinking about crisis and the practices that sustain me immediately before needing to call upon many of these practices. There is ancient wisdom in the practice of Sabbath, which is not primarily about worship but about rest. For me one of my natural reactions to stress is to work harder and to attempt to plow through the crisis and outlast it. Yet, while this is one of my defaults it also tends to be an unhealthy reaction for me because it impacts my creativity, my joy, my relationships and it cuts me off from the support I need.

As an introvert I require space and time to recharge, but beyond the space and time there are things that recharge my batteries faster than other things. These include music, stories, exercise, eating well, learning, playing, solitude or time with people I love, and working with my hands. Music has always been a source of joy for me and whether I am singing along with a CD, attending a concert, drumming on the steering wheel as I drive or jamming to the air guitar alone in the house by myself, music is one of the things I love. Unfortunately, when I overwork I tend to put myself in places where I can’t enjoy music in the same way. A lot of my work is either talking with other people or things that require more concentration and often silence is beneficial. But I need the balance of music to bring richness into my life.

I am a person who feeds off stories. Stories come in many forms, in books, in a movie, sometimes I just make them up in my head. I’ve always been able to let stories take me into their world for a moment and to get caught up with the actors or characters. I often find things in the world of the story that bring insight into situations in my own world, and then there is also simply the joy of a well told tale. Perhaps one of the other gifts of stories goes back to the gift of Sabbath, it forces me (or allows me) to have an excuse to step away from that drive to work through my struggles and instead to sit in another place at some distance from my own crises and to come back to them re-energized from being away in a distant land or time or world through the story.

I’m thankful that early in my life I learned the benefit of staying fit and eating a healthy diet. Through my time at Texas A&M and the Army physical fitness was a daily part of my work day and my enjoyment of running endured well after my time in the Army ended. Physical exertion is a great stress relief for me and my body just feels better and I am more creative when I make the time to run and workout. When I am stressed I am more likely to miss workout and I also have one less method to work through stress. Diet also affects me greatly. I enjoy cooking and I cook pretty fresh food using very little preservatives. If my diet changes through eating out frequently or even eating at church potlucks then I notice it rapidly. Caffeine also has a stronger effect on my body than it does for many people and again it is another thing that is readily available and tastes good at the moment but when I am stressed it contributes to that stress.

For a long time I didn’t give enough credence to the need to play. I was simply too busy doing ‘important’ things to give myself permission to do something as unnecessary as that. I always enjoyed playing, whether it was sports or a computer game or doing puzzles of various kinds but I never made time for it. Sometimes it goes back to my love of story (which video games often do immerse you into a story world) other times it feeds that need for physical activity but in the midst of all of it is the need to bring fun and joy into one’s life. I’m still not great at making time to play but I’ve learned it is an enjoyable part of my life and very healing.

Being an introvert doesn’t mean that I shun opportunities to be around other people, but it often doesn’t recharge my batteries. People who I love and trust can help me recharge but I also need my times of solitude. I’m not cut out to be an hermit, I need other people but social situations (like parties) take a lot more energy than they give to me.

Finally, I do enjoy working with my hands. Whether it is working in the soil in my garden or building something or just trying to be creative.  So much of what I do requires my intellectual side to be engaged but I also have the need to use the tactile side of my personality. I like being able to problem solve and being able to see something created or improved through working on it.

Wisdom of Story Reflection 1: The Roles and Rules of the World

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When an author tells a story one of the first things they have to do is place their characters in roles and in a world that has rules. The rules and roles will be different based upon the character and the world. A young wizard in a world where magical things are possible will have different roles and rules than an old cowboy riding into the old West. Even within the same world the rules can be different. A private in the army, for example, operates under different rules and certainly a different role than a general. Rules and roles work in a story because it imitates our life. Often the roles we play are second nature, like the feel of clothing on top of our skin that we no longer notice and the rules are as much a part of the environment we live in as the air we breathe.

The rules that we live within are dependent on the numerous roles we play within our lives. Some are gender determined: there are different cultural expectations for men and women. Men are shown from a young age to put their work above everything else (even family), to not express pain or weakness, and that the cultural expected role is for them to be the provider. Some rules come out of one’s place within a family: a young son or daughter should have different rules and constraints than a teenager or a young adult. Some rules come from the organizations and work that one is a part of. In my life the expectations as a military officer and later as a pastor were very different, for example language that was assumed to be a part of the life in the military are no longer considered appropriate in a more ‘holy’ calling by many.

Rules are not bad, we need rules to make sense of our lives and world. However, there are times where they can become stifling. Roles may fit us like a second skin or we may feel like we are continually wearing a mask that covers up our true self. Often these parts of our lives are invisible until a major change comes that changes the rules and roles. Things that we may have assumed to be true about our lives no longer hold up under the stress of the changes that go on within our lives.

So what do we do when the rules no longer work and the role we once played no longer fits. That is where the hard part of the story begins. Much like the people of Israel on their long Exodus from Egypt we may long to return to the places we knew and the security we once had (even though it might have been its own type of enslavement). Yet, in a story this is act 2, the challenging part of the story where a crisis pushes the protagonist to find our something new about themselves. If a person is in that part of their life it doesn’t feel like a story, it may feel like chaos or freefall. Yet all stories have a beginning point, a Launchpad so to speak and the rules and initial roles are that solid ground that retreats away on the expedition into the scary unknown frontier.

 

These meditations are based upon the Courageworks course, the Wisdom of Story taught by Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle Melton. This is my reflections after session 1.