A good story allows us to explore the intricacies and nuances of good - and of evil. The best stories ever told or written down are the ones that have us at the end of the movie or the book not with a fully resolved story line and a good always wins belief. The best stories are the ones where you come out and see both sides, and have mercy for the "good guy" and for the "bad guy". Stories tell a lot about the mind and heart of a person, and of a culture.
It is my firm belief that our western culture that is driven by facts and science and "empirical evidence" (whatever that is) is quickly eschewing these things, and turning towards the wisdom of story and story telling. It is not as if we are saying math is wrong, engineering is wrong and so forth, but we are learning to not put so much faith in them so as to say that they have all the answers to everything in life. Scientists have been working for years on quantum physics, the science of energy and of smaller things, and realizing that the smaller world just does not conform to, nor confirm, the findings of physics on a large scale. Some physicists who have tried to reconcile the two fields have been driven to fits of despair and rage - some have even gone to the mad house.
Science reveals mystery, stories reveal mystery, religion - in all its forms - reveals mystery. The way we have all grown up in the west is to believe that if something is a mystery it must, at all costs be deciphered. We just cannot abide with something being unknowable. What we do not realize, to our own detriment, is that mystery is what creates wonder within the heart and mind. Socrates is well known for saying "wisdom begins with wonder" and I believe he is very right. So to become wise is to acknowledge that there are some things that we do not really know, and then to be okay with it.
Mythology and folklore are birthed out of man's inability to make what seems incoherent into a coherent system. Man has always felt the need to find some order to his cosmos and some peace among the wreckage of his sometimes very, very unfortunate life. Myths, even today, are the ways we come to grips with evil, with relationships, with - love. How can the creator that I believe to exist also express his love to me among all this turmoil? He (or she) expresses himself through the stories of redemption, absolution and restoration that we write for ourselves over generations. He becomes that which we strive for - for a better life and a fundamental knowledge that all is, or will be, right with the world.
Christianity needs to come back to the roots of telling a story, a story of redemption. All our attempts at scientifically proving God, or scientifically proving that the stories of the patriarchs and the stories of Genesis must be absolutely scientifically accurate in every way are making us look the fool. The written word of God that we have today is a collection of stories told orally for generations. This does not make it less efficacious, this makes it all the more wonderful. As the world became more complex, and as wars and land grabs raged on and on, the story of God remained. The simple story of a God who set aside a nation so that they could be agents of hope and reconciliation for the world, how AWESOME is that! The story is still being written, the ink on the parchment is not yet dry. God is working to express himself through the stories of his people even today. While we use the bible to help us make sense of how God worked and is working, we aught not nail ourselves to one way of thinking and expect that it is exactly how God will work tomorrow. God is a living and dynamic and - dare I say - growing entity! His Holy Spirit is active everywhere, but we must be willing to say that some of what is being done is still a mystery. While the veil of the temple was torn, the veil was still there covering some of it. God, in his infinite mercy, has allowed us to still have mystery in our lives so that we will continue to pursue him, and continue to live in awe struck wonder at his feet.
My hope is to get out from under my own feet and get at the feet of Jesus. I long to sit at his feet as he tells the parable of the lost sheep, or of the prodigal son. I long to listen to the words of Jesus as he blesses the people he is with. I long to sit at the feet of a masterful storyteller who can weave the known, and the not so well known, into a new paradigm. Can we, the church, begin to focus on the story, and not the facts? Can we abide with mystery? Can we sit with mystery and not master it, rather let it beckon us to engagement? I think we can, and I think we must if we are to become a people that grows into the next generation, and who reaches out and disciples an entire generation of people.
~Selah
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