telling our story
This week is our last Mi-Week Session until February. Below is an exceprt from Derasha about telling our stories. We'll see you on Wednesday.
Once upon a time in a land far, far away … (Shouldn’t every story begin like that? I know that all the Star Wars fans are saying no). While those opening words may become stale over time, when we read them at the beginning of a fairy tale it always seems intriguing. As we read, the story pulls us into itself, and invites the reader to become a part of its world. Then we come to the words: THE END. The story is over, finished. However, the implications of the story, its characters, its apex and conclusion stay with us far beyond our time spent reading. Indeed there is something magical about the phrase, “Once upon a time.” Those words are more than an introduction; they are an invitation.
In The Lord of the Rings, Sam the Hobbit says to Frodo Baggins, “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?” This is a question that would help all of us along if we would only ask it of ourselves. Tales enchant and delight us, yet often we fail to see that we are in the midst of a great story here and now. We want to tell “my story” when really no one man or woman can have a story that is completely his or her own.
When I tell my story it involves other people. The story of my birth definitely involves my mom. She would tell the story of my birth in a completely different way. The story of my birth is not mine alone, it is my mother’s, my father’s, and my siblings’ story. It is everyone’s story who participated in that moment. As I enter into telling my story I am forced to recognize that my story is a sub-story in something much larger.
Another way of understanding this is in the movie series Star Wars. There are many stories in the Star Wars narrative. We have the father son love and hate relationship between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. We have the love interest relationship between Han Solo and Princess Leia. Then there is Chewbacca who is always doing the growl-yawn thing that no one gets.
However, Star Wars is ultimately about a larger than life story of the continual struggle between good and evil. George Lucas, the creator of the movies, creates a science fiction world of planets, creatures, and characters to tell his story of the embittered struggle between the dark side and the light side of The Force in a galaxy far, far away. While each character and place has a story it is all part of the big story, the metanarrative, of good versus evil.