The Story We Find Ourselves In

Elie Wiesel suggests that "God created man because he loves stories". If we are wanting to understand the mystery of life we may want to explore it in story. We have a great hurdle to leap if we are to have our eyes opened, for we are children of the Enlightenment and the Post Modern era.

This Era, John Eldridge says, has been causing us to loose our Story. "The Enlightenment dismissed the idea that there is an Author but tried to hang on to the idea that we could still have a larger story, life could still make sense, and everything was headed in a good direction. Western culture rejected the mystery and transcendence of the Middle Ages and placed its confidence in pragmatism and progress, the pillars of the Modern Era, the Age of Reason. But once we had rid ourselves of the Author, it didn't take long to lose the larger story. In the Postmodern Era, all we have left is our small stories. It's not pentecost, it's time for spring training. our role models are movie stars, and the biggest taste of transcendence is the opening of the ski season. Our best expressions are on the level of "Have a nice day." The only reminder we have of a story beyond our own is the evening news, an arbitrary collection of scenes and images without any bigger picture into which they fit. The central belief of our times is that there is no story, nothing hangs together, all we have are bits and pieces, the random days of our lives. Tragedy still brings us to tears and heroism still lifts our hearts, but there is no context for any of it. Life is just a sequence of images and emotions without rhyme or reason." from The Sacred Romance.

So what happens if we are created in a grand story and yet don't have eyes to see it? We create our own little stories to bring meaning to our lives. Deep within us we are meant to live within a grand story and to deny that leads to searching smaller stories or creating our own. What are these smaller stories? For me...it could be mountain biking. For you? Maybe it's sports, politics, tv shows, music. Or maybe you create your own story...More on that later.