Friday, February 02, 2007

Storytime or Maybe Not

I've often said, "It's all about the story." In the midst of a great adventure like hiking in Yosemite when you find your vehicle's tire is flat, that thought comes in handy and can put the experience in perspective. I've said similar things when I found myself walking alone in the rain on a dark street in Vietnam, arguing with personnel at a Thai airline counter that I could get into Turkey without a visa purchased in her fair city, discovering that it's less than ideal to take oversized luggage stuffed with missionary gifts through the Underground in London even if everyone is getting in a few hours of site seeing . . .

Recently though I've been playing with the lack of value in the "story." For every event there's what happened. Pure and simple. No added interpretation. No commentary. No assumptions applied. Just what happened.

And then there's the story -- the meaning and interpretation we give to what happened.

Apply this to relationships and some real healing can take place. My father didn't think less of me. He simply said, "If you can make As, do it." My friend didn't reject me. He stopped seeing me. The difference may be subtle but it's there.

And if you want a really good time take this thinking to the bible. Avoid interpretation and commentary and see what it leaves you. We did this as a staff this week and it was truly eye-opening.

3 comments:

Rodney said...

Sooo...what did that look like? I thought that it was impossible to take anything away from the Bible without interpreting it...

KC said...

In the strictest sense of the word, yes, there was interpretation in the choice of words or inflection or whatever in re-telling, but for the most part, it was simply a matter of telling the story as written. We just let the story stand on its own and didn't try to make application ... at first. Later, I asked them to summarize what happened in a sentence and again no interpretation was added. Finally, I asked for what they took away and that's when the "story" was offered but for each of us -- by that time -- the story was different!

kess said...

I love it! The idea of what happened vs. the story about what happened continues to empower me! It helps me to see that what other people do is just what other people do...it rarely has anything to do with me!