The stories we live by
24 Jul 2007
Whilst people maybe suspicious of dominant narratives, stories that seek to explain the meaning of life for everyone, we instinctively live by stories. There are dominant narratives in our lives, in our imagination, beliefs, values, inner voices and dialogues, childhood experiences, that are the reality we live by.
My Nan always tells me to put myself first because no-one else will! She means well, but it’s a not a story I want to live by. I got to thinking about where we hear expressed the narratives that dominate how we really live and order our lives. One place they seem to come out into the open are when we get together to eat meals and socialise. Looking back over the conversations I hear, and have, there seem to be a few stories we tell in the west.
1. Busy: we are all so busy, and justify our existence by being busy and letting others know how busy we are. We order our lives, the space we have for mission around this story, certainly in London.
2. Tired: Hot on the heals of being busy, is being tired. Is there anyone who isn’t tired and busy, because if there is we are suspicious of them. We invest so often with what we have left over from being tired and busy, and wonder we have so little to give.
3. Passing Through: Almost everyone I meet is passing through. The place they live is just a place until they get to the place they really want to live, usually the seaside, or Australia, just anywhere that isn’t where they are. What is the cost of not seeing ourselves as located in the communities we live in? No wonder we find it so hard to connect to our local communities, when we are ordering our lives around the telos of where we will be one day, rather than where we are now.
And any one seeking to do life together, mission in community, locally, faces these dominant stories that we order our lives around. How does the Gospel engage and challenge this monolithic stories, and set us free to live by a different story, and identity? And what are the stories that we order our lives around that you hear?
Tagged: Community, Narrative, Reality, Story
27 comments
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Comment by steven hamilton
3.55 pm on 24 Jul 2007
excellent and thought-provoking jason. hits me right where i am, as i am in the midst of reading an intriguing book that talks about this very thing: Metaphors We Live By, authored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, pointing to the fact that indeed we humans instinctively live our lives based on a story that we align ourselves with. it goes to the heart of explaining their simple idea that based on cognitive scientific and sociological research, people order their lives on “metaphors” or “patterns of living” that are re-emphasized through daily experience as we swim in certain contexts of culture and language…we pick up on them and “choose them” either subconsciously (or by choice)…whther they be from comic books, television dramas, soap operas, monty python or the rule of st. benedict…
Jesus is such the genius (sonf og God, go figure) in perceiving this and using metaphor/parable in word and deed to speak and lead a path to the deeper, more ancient story…the story that, tolkien once told lewis, is myth…but it happens to be true…
i think it’s telling (especially since i taught this last sunday in our faith community) that the “essentials” beyond faith in Christ that were recommended in Acts 15 in the letter from the Jerusalem Council were basically about how to party together, or how to eat together or socialise together…thus enter into living the story together…
yet, speaking of “passing through”…i’ll likely be passing through london in november…i’ll know more later, but when i make it there i’d love to get together with you or paul or marc or any that might be in town…
as i join Jesus in living His Story through my life, it sparks my imagination and has me flying in the clouds, yet walking on the road…handing out mercy to all i meet:
walking into the night
on slim rays of first light
Hope knitted hand-in-hand
with new mercies
smile upon this weary land
if i could
with flaming wings
of adoring angels
join the daily dance
of new mercies
taking the hand
of the broken and bruised
i would join
…in the goodness of God
…in this beautiful ballet each morning
…in the simplicity of a new day
welcoming the weary with Hope
Comment by Jason
4.24 pm on 24 Jul 2007
That’s a great book Steve, it helped me understand how metaphors work. Would be great to meet you in person!
Comment by Paul
7.15 am on 26 Jul 2007
sounds good steve, i’m pretty free in nov at the mo :)
Comment by brett jordan
4.31 pm on 24 Jul 2007
Busy-ness is a good thing, as long as it isn’t a permanent state of mind. We are made in God’s image, and part of that image is about creating and doing stuff. The problem comes when ‘being busy’ becomes primary, rather than incidental… also, we need rhythm to our lives, a time to be busy, a time to stretch ourselves, a time to work, a time to rest, a time to play… leave one of them out, and enervating weariness sets in
Tired-ness is something that is a part of being human… and it’s not even a bad thing if it is a result of doing productive work… however, a lot of people mistake proper tiredness for the enervation that results from not getting enough sleep, eating properly, drinking enough water and exercising regularly… there is a myth that some people wake up every morning bouncing with energy and then go through the day feeling that way… i’ve yet to meet anyone who fits that description, and some of the most productive, happy people i know are tired a lot of the time
Passing through is, of course, something that every Christian is in the process of doing… however, i do get annoyed at people who spend their entire life looking forward to what is going to happen, rather than dealing with the one thing they have some level of control over, NOW! whether that is people whose lives revolve around the holidays they have planned, or the day when they no longer have to do a nine-to-five job, they are all reducing a large part of their life to drudgery… and it really doesn’t have to be that way, especially for the majority of the readers of this blog
Surely the stories we need to be order our lives around are the stories of how God’s people did (and didn’t!) live lives in relationship with their creator… primarily in the scriptures, but also from people in the church we are associated with
Comment by Jason
4.37 pm on 24 Jul 2007
“Surely the stories we need to be order our lives around are the stories of how God’s people did (and didn’t!) live lives in relationship with their creator… primarily in the scriptures, but also from people in the church we are associated with”
Well said Brett!
Comment by Lyn
9.11 pm on 24 Jul 2007
Very thought provoking – thank you.
Comment by Jason
4.00 pm on 25 Jul 2007
Thanks Lyn, hope you get some summer sunshine!
Comment by edward pillar
9.58 am on 25 Jul 2007
thanks for this Jason – very pertinent thoughts…
busy, tired, passing through… maybe life is different here in leafy, green (wet) Evesham, but certainly I would agree that the busyness of a large city – like London – can get under one’s skin and therefore we become busy ourselves – forever hurrying, but not necessarily achieving any more than any one else.
I think it was Dallas Willard in ‘The Divine Conspiracy’ who said, ‘busyness is next to laziness’. What he explains is that if we are too busy then perhaps we have not organised our lives aright and will thereby be prone to taking on too much, with not enough space for rest and play. I think that the story that says ‘busyness is good’ is unbiblical. I remember a speaker at Spring Harvest saying that Jesus was the busiest man who ever lives yet still made time for his relationship with God. I thought: ‘what cobblers!’ Jesus was anything but busy – he always seemed to have time.
Genesis 1 has an interesting insight here – if I read it right: that a day begins at dusk (time to rest) and thereby we rest in order to live and work, rather than live and work and fall into bed exhausted.
As far as the passing through comment goes… I agree that we need to learn to be rooted where we are and that takes time. I’ve been here in Evesham for 12 years – the chances are that I will be here until at least 20 years have passed. Committedness to people and to the community bears the fruit of trust and companionship in those whom we serve.
We do need to live a different story. I just can’t see that being busy and constantly tired and ‘just passing through’ is a good story to live by. Besides, why should we feel the need to ‘be busy’?
Perhaps busyness is an idol of our age…
thanks jason – more thought-provoking stuff
Comment by Jason
4.01 pm on 25 Jul 2007
Thanks Edward, ‘living a different story’ certainly seems the challenge.
Comment by goodfornowt
11.06 am on 25 Jul 2007
Too busy. Can’t afford it. These seem to be the most common excuses offered for not doing what we don’t want to do. Among people who can least ‘afford it’ are the elderly. The truth is that many OAP’s have never been so comfortably off. I know. I am one.
Comment by Jason
4.04 pm on 25 Jul 2007
I think people assume you must be elderly, poor, or deranged to stay somewhere and be part of a community, that isn’t a holiday zone. How’s the rain in Lancaster?
Comment by Tim
1.37 pm on 25 Jul 2007
But is not business just a symptom of expectation? Often we work like crazy to make as much as we can, so that we can have all we want. Of course there is never going to be a definition of what is enough.
On the other hand, families have both adults working just to afford the rent/mortgage – and that’s often not because they have overstretched themselves, but because our society has invested colossal meaning in the value of property, rather than as place we chose to live. Perhaps this has some bearing on the reason why people are transient – “we’ll live here for a bit to make the money we need to live in the place we wantâ€.
They may be stories, but often societies force their citizens to live by them.
Comment by Jason
4.05 pm on 25 Jul 2007
Indeed Tim…Maybe it’s a vicious wheel, how do we opt out and get off? We are forced to live by this story, then find it becomes our story.
Comment by Tim
7.39 pm on 25 Jul 2007
Perhaps the counter cultural element of what Jesus has to say needs to come in to play – and perhaps there’s a middle ground on this, not some idealised thing, but something that’s changing the way people have to live. Perhaps it is radical, I’m not sure.
Comment by Paul
7.20 am on 26 Jul 2007
i find that after making some deliberate choices about my job to escape from a really busy job that was killing the rest of my life off, i now have the opposite problem – business envy :).
Other narratives, maybe something around status/recognition/approval and definately something about search for security and status anxiety…
Comment by Jason
4.31 pm on 26 Jul 2007
Get back to work you lazy git ;-)
Comment by Paul
8.18 am on 27 Jul 2007
the IRS is always at work, fortuantly i don’t work for them ;)
Comment by fernando
8.35 am on 26 Jul 2007
good post – you’ve left me wondering though, if the first two are mythologies rather than stories per se. it’s not just that claims of busyness and tiredness might be a little overblown, but rather that they are epiphenomenal. we believe the need to appear busy and so we tolerate levels of dysfunctionality within our lives that reinforce the busyness mythology.
certainly the last one is a story, or at least a narrative hope weaved through personal and biographical fiction. it’s a theme you’ve touched on before and certainly something that bears deep examination.
Comment by Jason
4.36 pm on 26 Jul 2007
Thanks Fermando. The first two seem to function as metanarratives for many people, the resultant chronic anxiety of western egalitarian societies (a la Alain de Botton’s diagnosis).
It’s the last one that concerns me the most, and does need a lot of consideration.
Comment by fernando
7.17 am on 27 Jul 2007
I’m partially in agreement with the status anxiety argument. However, I also find myself drawn to the either that a rather big element of this is the evacuation of guilt/shame and civic interconnection.
For example, if I forget to put out the rubbish, ring a sick friend, or cook a healthy meal because I’m far too busy, that is acceptable and maybe even laudable (well for the first and last examples at any rate). If I am tired, then I at least have a valid excuse.
But, if I don’t do those things because I’m just lazy, or selfish, or irresponisble, to use now out of date language, then I’m nothing more than a git.
There seems to be a pretty big meta-ethical reason for this shift in language. Of course here, upon reflection, the connection to your third point looms larger for me. The “passing through” mentality really undercuts the social contract and civic interconnectedness.
Comment by Jason
7.28 am on 27 Jul 2007
On the civic connection side, I think Richard Sennet (fall of public man) has it right in that we withdraw from public life due to narcissism, and the pressures of constructing our ‘authentic selves’.
Within that tiredness and busyness are relative states of mind/being, and to open myself up to others would be to be overwhelmed completely. I am struggling with my own self construction so much how on earth can I hope to make a difference in the world of others? Then we project onto the state the responsibility to do things for other people. Not to mention the cost in a consumer society to helping others – where we once could rebuild some ones home, the cost of help is overwhelming.
The opposite of being busy, doesn’t seem to be to lazy, as you say that’s too pejorative. Instead we have the language of psychiatry and psychotherapy, where setting boundaries to the self become a liberation psychology, the goal of health is freedom from obligations to others, and any sense of identity being found with others.
This is the one that concerns me the most with regards to ‘passing through’. Ou inability to locate our identity in location to others in community, as if was a psychiatric pathology to do so (or unless we happen to live in the rural/seaside idl of being permanently on holiday).
Comment by James Prescott
8.58 am on 26 Jul 2007
Its so true about the ‘busy-tired-passing through’ being very real for us. I have seen it a lot, working in London and even experienced it myself.
I think its important to…
1)Make space for other people, not feel compelled to do everything all the time.
2)Make space for good rest, don’t cloud our diaries too much.
3)Make time for God, because ultimately He is more important than anything or anyone else.
4)Aspire not to live or move somewhere better, but to grow in God and continue in odedience to Him, whatever that involves or wherever we end up.
Comment by Jason
4.37 pm on 26 Jul 2007
Sounds like a good antidote James. Jason.
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