Riding the train this morning, almost every head I saw bowed over a book. And it struck me again how much everyone needs story. Stories have a plan, they’re a decided path to follow. A character wants something, and faces choices, defining what will be surrendered, and what will be clutched.
The tension builds. The character leaves home, or loses food packed for the journey. Friends betray or an unexpected lover fills all the needs but the greatest. The story breathes, builds.
And the reader knows there’s a point; that somewhere there’ll be this big, important scene. Modor will fall, Khan will die, Alice will believe impossible things.
And everyone lives happily ever after... until the next story begins.
And everyone lives happily ever after... until the next story begins.
There's a rhythm, a process, a way to things.
We know what should happen, we know why. We just move on until we arrive when it happens.
Like the way we wish could with our own lifestories.
Except we lack that level of control; we were only given our individual story. We can choose our own adventures in our lives, choose our own stories, but we can't live anyone else's story.
There's great comfort offered in embracing that truth.
Being given a path to follow, a singular story to craft means we are not responsible for anyone else - not their choices, their damage, their glory, their need.
Which makes every act of kindness, every chance interaction a gift.
And allows us to take responsibility and ownership for our own paths, choices.
When Lent started, I wasn't sure what I should give up this year. I'm not so great at the self-sacrifice, and it's hard for me to see when I clutch things which should be surrendered. I tend to be blind, but God has no such weak spots. And a rather wicked sense of humor.
Today, I have three nails in my cross: no Starbucks, no playing Second Life between midnight and 6 AM, and to blog, comment or somehow communicate online every day. Two things I offer at the altar, and one, I take on as a personal challenge.
The Starbucks really only challenges during the week. Under my art deco office building lies the world's. best. Starbuck's. Seriously. My baristas literally sing while ringing up my order. Carlos (who makes the drinks usually) and Panda (one of the cashiers) find me to randomly talk about life events, town happenings, and other random good things. One of the managers tells me she lives to hear about my love life. They are not my intimates, but it's hard not seeing them all first thing in the morning. That grande, soy, no whip, extra sprinkles cinnamon dolce latte just makes life better. So does that brownie in the afternoon.
Except what I pay for gas a week goes towards a bunch of sugar and caffeine. Plus, if I need a coping mechanism for my job (and as a self-identifying post-modernist creative in an accounting firm cube farm - Yes. I. Do.), I should be more creative in finding one.
Which brings me to the challenge I face on the weekends. I love to stay up late, always have. Nothing makes me feel quite as contentedly introverted as staying up all night, then sleeping late into the morning. Or afternoon. It's a small rebellion, harming no one. Or so I justify.
Except it keeps me from community.
Meeting with friends to talk about God, or catching a meal where we talk about nothing becomes much harder when I'm unconscious. Or haven't planned it. And although it pains me to admit it, the rest of the world is not going to flip its schedule to better suit mine. I should learn that after 30+ years.
But I can be stubborn. Which is a lesson worth learning every Lent.
This Lent hit me unlike any others before.
Time flew; my attention's been more on calendars full of doctors' appointments and job expectations rather than holy days or loftier goals. Excuse or no, I've noticed it's easier to justify my stubbornness and self-focus when I stop watching for those red lettered calendar days.
And that brings me to the third nail in my tree, what I least want to confess.
I'd rather be a character in a story already written than try to figure out what my role is in the Story God writes each day. Owning what happened to me, to the fact I cling to what I know rather than what might be good for me, that I use the pain of past experiences to dictate how I respond to strangers is... unsexy. It's petty and too honest.
It reeks of Pharisees and televangelists. Or at least something they'd do; not really something they would admit to.
Although that seems a subtle difference, a matter of semantics, it's what Lent means for me: a time out of me-focused desperation to achieve my own ends, the opportunity to prepare for a for everything to change in ways I cannot possibly anticipate. It's the break between chapters as the story breathes.
Lent turns our pages, starts a new chapter. Reminds us to seek the unexpected, and to give thanks for the voids created by surrender.
There's great comfort offered in embracing that truth.
Being given a path to follow, a singular story to craft means we are not responsible for anyone else - not their choices, their damage, their glory, their need.
Which makes every act of kindness, every chance interaction a gift.
And allows us to take responsibility and ownership for our own paths, choices.
When Lent started, I wasn't sure what I should give up this year. I'm not so great at the self-sacrifice, and it's hard for me to see when I clutch things which should be surrendered. I tend to be blind, but God has no such weak spots. And a rather wicked sense of humor.
Today, I have three nails in my cross: no Starbucks, no playing Second Life between midnight and 6 AM, and to blog, comment or somehow communicate online every day. Two things I offer at the altar, and one, I take on as a personal challenge.
The Starbucks really only challenges during the week. Under my art deco office building lies the world's. best. Starbuck's. Seriously. My baristas literally sing while ringing up my order. Carlos (who makes the drinks usually) and Panda (one of the cashiers) find me to randomly talk about life events, town happenings, and other random good things. One of the managers tells me she lives to hear about my love life. They are not my intimates, but it's hard not seeing them all first thing in the morning. That grande, soy, no whip, extra sprinkles cinnamon dolce latte just makes life better. So does that brownie in the afternoon.
Except what I pay for gas a week goes towards a bunch of sugar and caffeine. Plus, if I need a coping mechanism for my job (and as a self-identifying post-modernist creative in an accounting firm cube farm - Yes. I. Do.), I should be more creative in finding one.
Which brings me to the challenge I face on the weekends. I love to stay up late, always have. Nothing makes me feel quite as contentedly introverted as staying up all night, then sleeping late into the morning. Or afternoon. It's a small rebellion, harming no one. Or so I justify.
Except it keeps me from community.
Meeting with friends to talk about God, or catching a meal where we talk about nothing becomes much harder when I'm unconscious. Or haven't planned it. And although it pains me to admit it, the rest of the world is not going to flip its schedule to better suit mine. I should learn that after 30+ years.
But I can be stubborn. Which is a lesson worth learning every Lent.
This Lent hit me unlike any others before.
Time flew; my attention's been more on calendars full of doctors' appointments and job expectations rather than holy days or loftier goals. Excuse or no, I've noticed it's easier to justify my stubbornness and self-focus when I stop watching for those red lettered calendar days.
And that brings me to the third nail in my tree, what I least want to confess.
I'd rather be a character in a story already written than try to figure out what my role is in the Story God writes each day. Owning what happened to me, to the fact I cling to what I know rather than what might be good for me, that I use the pain of past experiences to dictate how I respond to strangers is... unsexy. It's petty and too honest.
It reeks of Pharisees and televangelists. Or at least something they'd do; not really something they would admit to.
Although that seems a subtle difference, a matter of semantics, it's what Lent means for me: a time out of me-focused desperation to achieve my own ends, the opportunity to prepare for a for everything to change in ways I cannot possibly anticipate. It's the break between chapters as the story breathes.
Lent turns our pages, starts a new chapter. Reminds us to seek the unexpected, and to give thanks for the voids created by surrender.
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