Three short reflections on Narrative
1. I end up teaching narrative every year, it seems. You know, Freytag’s pyramid, what we all expect out of a story? It's always kind of hard for me to teach, because we have to know that a clear, cohesive plot structure exists, that’s good. But the genius is not found in following the plot structure. The genius is found in those who break, abuse, dismiss, reject the traditional. Just like good grammar, scansion of poetry, 5 paragraph essay structure. You have to learn it, then you have to learn how to go past it. You have to understand it so you can use it as a tool, not as law. It's hard to explain the ambiguity to 7th graders.
2. For quite some time now, I’ve had an eventual dream about running a program which teaches writing to battered/underpriviledged women. To some, it may sound ridiculous: why would women with so much physical need even care about a skill like writing? To me, though, writing is sanity. It is also power, and extremely empowering. Even in the most desperate, hurtful and potentially scarring situations, I write. This is the thing that matters about writing: The story is one you are telling, you are the creator, and the way you see things, they way you tell them, is in your control. To give this gift to women who, their whole life, have been told they have nothing to say--to give them voice--this would be amazing.
3. My pastor read an excerpt from a Donald Miller book on Sunday about the story that we live out. The point was that when we feel we have no control over what choices we make, we reach for the story which looks the most convenient, or the easiest, or the most comfortable, even if it is a story of self-harm and brokenness.
This obviously makes me think of my dad. He already is an excellent writer and thinker; he already knows all about the structure and the power of narrative, the kind on paper. But I don’t think he understands or ever understood the power of narrative as a shaping tool for life. I think, when he found himself in the hospital, discouraged and disappointed with his job and his life, sick in his body and his soul, he had reached the end of the narrative he knew how to live. And even when he came back home to heal, he saw nothing except more of the same: years of loneliness and sadness, stretching out into oblivion. He saw no better story, and so he fell into a story of illness and pain. A pattern of inflicting that pain on the people closest to him. A different story than he had ever lived before, something none of us saw coming, but the one which seemed to fit. And now, he lives that story, I must say, very well.
When I realize this, of course I become angry first, angry the he was not creative, spiritual or resourceful enough to grasp other options, But then, I wonder, perhaps it is not a solo endeavor, this creation of story. Perhaps we are responsible for one another’s story, for participation, for providing vision. Perhaps that’s as good as any an expression of what it means to follow Christ—isn’t that what Christ provided on earth? A new way to approach enemies, riches, pleasure, death…life in general—a new version of the story of humanity?
I want to give vision to Dad’s story, I want to write it all down for him, present it, make it easy to step out of what he’s become and into something whole and beautiful. But even as I write, I know that I will never be able to craft his life into anything—he’s got to do that himself. As impossible as it feels, I can only attempt to keep being a participant who brings reminder of Love, Grace, and Purpose.
Besides, it’s easy to bemoan the loss of vision in the people around us—it’s hard to focus on our own narrative. It’s hard when I love my job, and yet know I promised myself an adventure this very next year, which all of a sudden seems to be tugging at my hem, saying, remember me? Remember how you swore you’d go back to school? Move to a brand new city? Well?
And I realize I don’t know how to live a perfect story, but maybe that's okay. I think about Freitag’s pyramid, and my 7th graders gasping at the end of Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day", referring to their neatly drawn pyramids, pencils ready for the resolution, mouths gaping, confused that the loose ends were not neatly tied up. We have expectations for how stories should go.
But it's a more powerful story with the ending this way, I hear myself explain to the class. The imperfection in the story- This is what brings the theme, and the meaning, to the story. And I wonder if I believe what I'm teaching.
