Fitting Our Pre-Set Narrative

The New Yorker allows me to sample a worldview without the spiritual nutritional deficits that would come from overindulging. This is particularly the case with the author profile, allowing me to learn from the perspective and craftsmanship of authors I am unlikely to read in part because their attitude on sexual matters differs so markedly from the Bible's. Disconcertingly, though, I often find similar biases behind the thinking of the very secular authors, and that of myself and my fellow Christians. Radically different symptoms can manifest the same disease of sin and ego.

Thus I encountered novelist Otessa Moshfegh in the most recent issue. Her perspective on how she mines real-life experience for writing material intrigued me. "I just want to see the edge of the building, and then I want to go and build it myself," she explains by way of metaphor. This professional detachment extends to how she builds characters from encounters with real people. "That's how I feel when I meet somebody: I just want this much." As a writer, she can flesh out the rest to suit her purposes.

I find nonprofessionals engage in the same narrative building, and with less noble ends. Presented with a new ensemble of flesh and blood characters in my life, I quickly began casting. If I was enthusiastic about the first one or two protagonists, narrative tension required that I find a foil or two to get in their way. Somebody needed to impede progress if the plot in my life was going to keep my interest, or anyone else's. Therefore, I found myself, like Moshfegh but without the paycheck and the honesty to label my efforts as fiction, seeking a villain. Just as Blair on The Facts of Life turned from Texas naïveté in her original concept to sneering industrial royalty based on Lisa Whelchel's delivery of one line, so I have been guilty of using such scant "evidence" to typecast those around me.

I'm not alone. Nathaniel in John 1:46 set a ceiling on Jesus' potential because of his Nazareth origins. In turn, the Pharisees dismissed Jesus' prophetic credentials in Luke 7:39 because He apparently didn't adequately factor in what "sort of" woman offered him worship. To be human in their reckoning is to learn to sort other people quickly and with finality. Noble to left. Ignoble to the right. The line is as solid as its origins are sketchy. Jesus, of course, as Ever Creator figures differently. Our origins or our position at a point in time matter less.  His Great Sort will be at the end of days with perfect justice. Until then, Christ makes the unlikeliest hearts new and forces a rewriting of our hasty narratives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Hobby Or A Habit?

Chris is a firefighter's firefighter.  He is passionate about the equipment. He is passionate about the people he gets to help. He is passionate about the honor of a career in the fire service. He is passionate enough to attend a training to sharpen his skills on his vacation time. When a college kid at the same training referred to firefighting as a hobby, Chris was not passionate in affirming that kind of divided enthusiasm. Would he have my back, Chris questioned? Would he rescue someone on the second floor if doing so involved in some personal risk?   Chris didn't have a chance to ask these questions or confront this attitude during the brief training. Perhaps someone else in a more long-standing relationship with this kid will have the opportunity fo model professionalism and to extend it to confrontation where necessary. If not, the progression is predictable, and extends far beyond firefighting. Observing a similarly nonchalant attitude in a young pitcher, Michael Lew
Read more

Enthusiasm, Even If We Have To Work At It

On Fixer Upper, a real estate renovation show, perpetually upbeat contractor Chip Gaines faces the usual list of hassles incumbent in his work with the reflection that his father's greatest gift to him was to show him that work could be fun. Conversely, as I asked my usual questions of a new acquaintance in Bible study about what he looks for in new hires, he shared separately that enthusiasm can't be trained. I can't, he said, teach you to have fun at your job. The two insights are not necessarily contradictory. Chip's father had a prolonged impact on his attitude toward work at a time when Chip's child heart was as flexible as the body of an infant who can peacefully fall asleep in postures an adult would find uncomfortable if not crippling. The cafeteria manager spoke to the rest of us who either were not presented with that inspirational outlook or who have been distracted from that by work's more aggravating aspects. For those of us who don't come b
Read more

While It Is Still Called Today

About a month ago, my brother was in an auto accident. When I asked about subsequent trouble with his back, he was philosophical. What happened, he said, was that my back tightened in order to protect my spinal cord. Now, anytime I'm under stress or try to lift anything, even something small, the same response kicks in. I have to retrain myself. Retrain himself he did. A lifelong independent person and freethinker who tends to shun accolades or confirmation from the crowd, on social media or otherwise, he nevertheless posted a picture on Facebook of his graduation from physical therapy. He could now return to work. Perhaps it was in the spirit of celebrating the celebratory, the completion of his first week back on the job with the shift that ended about 11, that he decided to defy middle-age and go to hear his uncle's band. When he left, it was raining heavily. The car was new to him. It collided with a concrete barrier. He totaled the car and broke a couple ribs, but human vu
Read more