In Search of Story

This is a random question I’m pondering today: do we have a thresh-hold for story?

I ask because I seem to be able to take in less at a time than others: Karen, for example, devoured two television episodes, a movie, and chapters from two different novels before going to bed last night. I managed the continuing plot of two consecutive television episodes, and was done. I attempted to share one of the novel chapters with her, but was mentally logged off.

Perhaps I move more slowly through unpacking a story than she does, or perhaps I’ve been ruined by being forced to read far too much non-fiction (and I don’t mean creative non-fiction) through my grad school days. Perhaps a good story is just like great food for me: I want to savor every bit of it. I don’t want to watch it or read it too fast…I want to catch the nuances, all the potential meta-message that may lie within the plot.

Karen does the same thing, just at a much faster pace.

Either way, I think it’s a good problem to have as there is simply too little appreciation for story in Western culture. Particularly, the overly religious among us tend to flee from it, apparently afraid of it’s power, afraid of being uncomfortable or being made to think by surrendering to a movie or play or novel for a few hours. I listened to Dr. Jerry Root recount today how he was raised thinking that if Christ returned while he was in a movie, he would be passed by.

This is fundamentally (pardon the pun) odd to me, as the most effective way to communicate an idea tends to be through story, whether personal narrative or fiction (such as the parables of Christ). Yet, so many great thinkers choose to communicate their concepts without the use of story. Perhaps that’s why theology becomes so potentially convoluted.

So my points here are that:

1) Every theologian should employ a ghost writer.
2) All of us should learn to return story to its proper high place in our personal and family cultures for the sake of perpetuating thought.

I doubt we’ll be fortunate enough for number 1 to happen, but I’m strongly optimistic for number 2.

2 Comments

  1. Your number 1 made me laugh. 🙂 Number 2 is certainly attainable. Karen and I would get a long; I have had 5 novels going at once before. 5 is my limit though, things start to get a little mixed up at that point. Good post.

  2. you know….. I needed that Dave….I am one of those who fight the legalistic thinking that stories are bad. (ask Karen, she can explain some of my baggage, if need be). I think sometimes that I have been all cooped up with this and that if I just let go, ooh!….the stories I could tell, write, think up!! I am constantly thinking…’wow, that would be a great plot for a story,’…sadly, I rarely follow up. But you have given me a vision of how story telling could help someone understand something they might otherwise never comprehend. And for that I thank you.
    Cheryl

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