this weekend i have been impacted once again by the power of what it is to write one's own story. it is one thing to think about your life, one thing to talk about it and even receive therapeutic help in understanding it- but it is an entirely different process to sit down and put words to what your experience of life and relationship has been.where do you come from? how has your family marked and named you? what words have been spoken to your body? what are your tragedies? what do you do with shame and glory? how do you carry yourself in relationship because of those things?
the last question also brings you to the answers of: how do you understand sin and salvation?- essentially, how do you live out the gospel in relationship as a result of your story?
more.
7 comments:
hey man, well crafted summary of lsat night and last weekend. I have been so overwhelmed with trying hold all these questions. How do you hold the story of your family? and how do you hold your wife's story? and i just find all of our miscommunication and struggle directly related to our opposite family stories. How do you hold the weight of this? you know?? haha
thanks for the reminder of these questions. I took marriage and fam 2 years ago now and everything fades so quickly. I have forgotten more than I remember...but these are questions that need to be revisited from time to time. I find I cannot be present to them always--I flit on the surface of life and then dive below to the depths then come back up to the sun. there is beauty in both.
blessings and grace on your pursuit of the stories connected to these questions.
dude,
my body is still physically making me pay for the psychological torment that comes from writing out your family story! symptoms include, but are not limited to:
nail biting
eating to self soothe
knots in shoulders and back
racing thoughts
feelings of anxiety in my chest
i'm realizing how little i know about myself. it's amazing to begin to connect the dots and surface themes and patterns in my life- through introspection, but mostly through community, the voices of other's speaking into your story.
you are right, mike, to do that with your spouse is crazy. and yeah, the physical effects... are crippling.
peace
'it strikes me, even as i type this, how distant and far our formulaic methodology is from the artful, narrative sort of methodology used to explain scripture. it makes you wonder whether we can even get to the truth of our theology unless it is presented in the sort of methodology Scripture uses. it makes you wonder if all of our time spent making lists would be better spent painting or writing or singing or learning to speak stories...
I feel my life is a story, more than a list; i feel this blood slipping through my veins, these chemicals in my brain telling me I am hungry or lonely, sad or angry, in love or despondent. And I don't feel that a list could ever explain the complexity of all this beauty...it seems nearly heresy to explain the gospel of Jesus, in bullet points.'
--Don Miller
that's a wonderful quote, chris. thanks for that- i really need to read this miller guy, great stuff i hear.
phil, you haven't read any mill? duuuuude, let me take you under my wing. you are missing out on a great companion of an author. i have his books if you want to borrow one, they're all quick reads. just a bunch of stories. very refreshing books, not a whole lot of heavy theology, just good, honest, funny, and provocative stories. heck, i'd read them to you. but only if we can snuggle after.
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