Living a Better Story

I just came across Donald Miller's latest book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life” which is about taking stock of the story you are living. After his critical success, Blue Like Jazz, he was a couch potato until two Hollywood producers wanted to do a screenplay of his life. He started thinking about how he was living, and what kind of story that would be, and realized it wasn't the story he wanted to live. So he got off his butt, and made many changes.

My life isn't perfect, but it's not exactly screenplay material either. In many ways, I've been floating along, keeping my head above water, and not causing any ripples, either positively or negatively. My children are doing well, though, so I guess I must be doing something right. My writing is going reasonably well too, so must be doing something right there as well.

But who am I kidding? I hate not having things perfect. I am a certifiable perfectionist, and this is what I need to change, and I need to get real about not being perfect. That may be the real reason I gave this blog the name it has.

Sooooo if I were being honest, and really wanted to live a better story, I'd confess to being a perfectionist, and strive to change those ways.

1) not worry if someone spills something on the floor

2) invite lots of people over for dinner and feed them macaroni and cheese (with asiago of course)

3) stop writing lists of where I want to be in ten years, and consider what I'm doing now to live well and imperfectly (which are kind of the same thing)

4) stop cleaning the house or doing laundry..... hmm, well maybe not

My Life as Story...

Was something Peter Kreeft said in a seminar for Act One's workshop a year or two ago in Hollywood. (Act One is a screenwriting program to turn Christian keeners, intent on saving Hollywood, into excellent writers. And Peter Kreeft is a preeminent Catholic thinker who's written about 50 books, and has his feet planted firmly on the ground.)

He said that if we think of our life as story, and understand that like all characters we have the power to resist good and embrace evil, just as much as the other way around, then we will also understand that we can only be overcome by a beauty more powerful than our choice of evil. Looking at our lives as such, also makes for less remorse over lost years, regarding them as part of the narrative arc in a journey, as long as that journey is gradually inching towards good. It allows me to see (sometimes, at least, when I'm not overcome by anger and resentment), that the things that have happened to me over the past 12 years, have also opened me up to God's grace in a way that being sheltered probably could not have. By looking at our lives as story, we are also able to see truth, because it lies there in the concrete. And goodness, he says, depends on truth -- that is, without being truthful, we can never really be good. That's why some beautiful movies can never be good, because they don't impart truth, and also why some primitive movies are good because they do. And it lies in the story, not in the costumes, sets, and special effects, though sometimes excellent goodness is seen through those things too. As flawed as Mel Gibson's personal life is, and as much as it's not always a witness for Christ, his movie The Passion of the Christ, affected people -- Christians and atheists and Jews and Muslims -- in a profound way that has led many to truth.

Another thing Kreeft said that struck home was the need to "exchange efficiency for delight." Joy is something I have either avoided, or it's avoided me, until the past few years when I have recognized the need, actually the desire, for joy.

Faith in the Time of Choleric Spirits

The past little while I've felt very unsettled -- at times extremely happy and peaceful without the sword of Damocles over my head, and at others feeling afraid and very vulnerable. Meanwhile, the world around me spins, not just on its axis as its meant to, but as in out of control spinning. The children's marks are dropping a little, they're staying up too late, watching too much TV or on the computer too long, not reading enough, not exercising enough. The ex is looking fat and satisfied with his lot, but there's also an edge to him now that wasn't there before, an aggressive edge even, and he's never been like that. I won't speculate on where it's emerging from, but I can guess. One sister is on the brink of being on the street, the niece is more or less on the street, and I become increasingly aware of the "demons" -- however one wants to define them -- whirling about like dervishes.

Today I read in Matthew 15, the Canaanite woman who approached Jesus fearlessly to have him heal her daughter of demon possession. The woman's confidence and faith won out. After this, the crowds press on Jesus, and he heals the blind, the lame, the dumb, the maimed. After three days of this, he feels compassion for the people who stayed out of faith to be healed, and knowing they were hungry asked for food, blessed it, broke it, and distributed it.

But then Jesus goes to be alone with the Father. He is the centre of this whirling sea of illness, helplessness, demonic possession and so on. He can withstand this only because of the stolen moments of peace and grace that come with time alone with God.

Today's CQOD from Thomas Merton seemed very apt:

When the time comes to enter the darkness in which we are naked and helpless and alone; in which we see the insufficiency of our greatest strength and the hollowness of our strongest virtues; in which we have nothing of our own to rely on, and nothing in our nature to support us, and nothing in the world to guide us or give us fight--then we find out whether or not we live by faith. ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Seeds of Contemplation

And as Christ said, come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you. (Matt 11:28)