This post was inspired by a talk by Ira Glass [hattip: Kottke.org] I listened to at work today. Ira Glass is the host of this American Life, the most listened to podcast on the internet currently, an amazing story teller and one of the most articulate people I've heard on the art of story telling. 
Listen to the lecture, it is interesting and engaging, and full of great tips on telling a good story. But one thing he says is how telling a story is two fold. The first is the actual narrative of the story. The process of "first I did this, and then this, and so this happened, and in the end this." The second is connecting the story to a larger, more universal theme... the part that makes the story have meaning and resonance for more than the one person who told it.
In the Christian circles I find myself running in (and I often do run in circles), this is called the action/reflection cycle. The fact that we must act, then we must reflect. That the process of reflection is as important as the action that proceeds it. It is within that space that we allow God to speak and to unveil meaning, direction and insight.
Where I think we can learn, is often we reflect so quickly in our pursuit of God's voice, that we turn our experiences into trite life lessons, where we learn patience, love, trust and faith all in quick succession. I remember sitting with my family as a child doing evening devotions. Dad would get out the "One-year devotional for Teens!" (notice the exclamation point... it helps make the bible more interesting and exciting for teenagers and instantly rids them of all their angst) and we as a family would read a story about a young girl or boy, who was lied to by a friend at school. Her mother will sit her/him down patiently (as all mothers do) and help the young one understand that even though she is angry, she needs to forgive her friend.At the end there would be a memory verse and a series of questions. "Have you been hurt before?" "Who do you need to forgive today?" Appropriate questions for my 12 year old mind. The devotional would continue to dispense with these moral lessons all year, teaching us to forgive, to give to others, to be kind to old ladies, to treat our teachers with respect. And in the process I learned that the story is merely a tool towards a greater purpose. God uses stories to teach us to be good. I encountered this in most Christian fiction, dramas for vacation bible school, and in preacher's sermons.
This reality is a sad one. What I am learning from Ira is that you need to tell the story first.
In this life of pursuit of Jesus, this life of discipleship, our story is reality. The moralizing is not. We walk along the path of our story. The grit, failures, successes of our life are our story. As we live life and walk along this path, we then reflect so that God can remind us why we walk, why we strive, to give us inklings as to where we are on the map of his greater plans. When we forget the importance of the story, it's as if we have stopped walking, contenting ourselves with analyzing a map of the road.
We could learn from Ira Glass. That the story comes first. That the story needs to be told and that we need to invite people into the turmoil of our story. We want them to hang on to every moment as we reveal step by step how we have fallen, picked ourselves up and continued to walk. How we have struggled with cross-bearing decisions and have chosen for ill or for good. How we have sat in times of darkness and are still not completely sure we see the light. And then, and only then, when in our vulnerability we have opened ourselves up to be critiqued, ridiculed, or worst ignored, then we can pause and ponder, "God, what is it that you are leading me into? What is the greater story?". For it still necessary to understand who we are amidst the grand landscape of God's sovereign motion and movement, but let us not be too hasty to say we know where we are.
note: The devotional above was not the one we used as kids. I just thought it was "awesome" :). On another side note, my parents often couldn't stand some of the devotionals either and so we would have good conversations off of that. My parents are awesome, the devotional materials of the early 90s... so so.
