Monday, December 6, 2010

Story

"I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants."

I'm reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. The subtitle is: What I learned while editing my life, and the book is, so far, about Donald Miller's journey to turning Blue Like Jazz into a movie. He's struggling with how to write a screenplay about a memoir he wrote about himself.

Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has a podcast that I listen to quite regularly. I never thought I would be the kind of person to listen to sermons and NPR voluntarily, but I have become that girl. A few months ago, there was an interview with Peter Rollins who has some fantastic ideas about story and the significance stories/parables play in our lives. In the interview, he talks about how we aren't really the person we think we are. Our vision of ourselves is greatly skewed- the person we present to the world and the person we truly are inside are very different people.

Now for Donald Miller, trying to write a screenplay about the individual portrayed in his memoir is bringing this dualistic nature of us to the forefront of his consciousness. He has this image of the person in the book, a cool person who has it all together and who doesn't doubt himself, but this person called Don isn't really Donald Miller, even though it is. It's a fascinating read, and I'm really enjoying it, but the quote at the beginning of this post is really what stuck out to me. Because don't we all want to be the heroes of our stories? The answer is yes. The harder questions is: ARE we being the heroes of our own stories? For me, the answer is quite often a resounding no.

I feel like I've lost a bit of my writing voice. I don't know how to say what I want to say, but I'm hoping you can feel what I'm trying to say. I'm ending this post with a challenge:

Live courageously. Live your story in such a way that people see God working through you as His magnificent creation and are drawn to Him. Love. Laugh. Smile. Give time, give energy, give your heart. Be where you are, and be the best you can be NOW, not later. Write a story worth telling.

1 comment:

  1. I needed this Jacque... very much. Thank you for writing. I've been realizing lately that I've been approaching the major parts of my life with a dominating attitude of fear. Not courage. So this is what I needed to hear. Thanks. Love you!

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