Tell Me a Story... please

My husband picks on me.  It's true.

But it's not that I don't give him cause.  Over our 17ish years of marriage (I was a child bride), I've bounced from one pop culture obsession to another.  I don't really like television... there's a show about every five years that I care anything for.  Yet something about a saga really gets to me.

I can trace the beginnings of this phenomenon to my friend C.  About nine years ago or so, we were wandering through Chapter Two bookstore in Charleston SC.  She remarks casually, "You would probably enjoy Harry Potter.  It's a fun read."  I read The Sorcerer's Stonein about 18 hours and raced through the entire series, eventually pre-ordering and traipsing down to the bookstore for midnight release parties.  I still pick them up when I'm too tired to read anything new or serious or when I'm anxious or depressed. 

I also unashamedly adore the Buffy series, Twilight, West Wing, and now Glee.  Hence the periodic ribbing I get from my life partner. 

So I guess there are worse vices.  I don't smoke, drink only very moderately, am monogamous and generally mild-mannered.  I can barely bring myself to curse when a situation warrants it.  Thus my point is not to beat myself up for being silly about the new Twilight movie (June 30!), but to wonder at why it's these particular stories that incite my imagination when I am completely clueless about Desperate Housewives or whatever.

There's something about the interplay between choice and destiny in each of these stories that informs my worldview.  I think just one example of what I'm talking about will suffice; don't want my fingers to cramp up from too much typing.  In Chapter 23 of Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore is trying to explain the mysterious prophecy to Harry. 

It is essential that you understand this!" said Dumbledore, standing up and striding about the room, his glittering robes swooshing in his wake; Harry had never seen him so agitated. (p. 510)

In their ensuing discussion, Harry begins to see his real choice.  He can walk away from the coming conflict with evil.  He has that choice but choosing it would be a betrayal of his convictions and his family. 

But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him.  It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high.  Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry... - that there was all the difference in the world. (p. 512)

It's not that destiny is not operating, but characters in these stories embrace their destiny or walk away.  Buffy and West Wing are different in that characters in these two series choose over and over.  Harry Potter and Twilight are more focused on a single choice, or how a series of choices point to a life-defining moment.  Glee hasn't been around long enough for me to say much about the character's destinies.  It's possible that I just like singing along to the music.

There IS a larger point to all this craziness.  And my first glimpse of that larger point can also be traced back to a remark by a single individual.  My favorite professor in college taught a class on post-1945 American political history.  According to the syllabus, the focus was the building of post-war consensus around center-left domestic policy decision, the destruction of that consensus, and its later revitalization by Presidential politics of the last couple of decades of the 20th century.  I don't remember too much about the substance of the course (except for a dislike of Lyndon Johnson's leadership style), but something did stick.  Dr. D spoke of being a "protagonist of history."  I'm sure the phrase didn't originate with him, but he made it personal.  As a baby boomer, he recalled his elementary school burgeoning with new students during first grade year.  He was a Vietnam veteran, who served once his student deferments ran out.  The draft board told him, "We're sorry Mr. D.  We've just run out of n-ggers to send over there." He lived through the turbulent 1960s and was aware of the importance of the times in which he lived.  I'm not sure that the span of my own life will be as historically significant, but the idea that we live in history, that history is being created as we live, that living aware is important, that our decisions have incredible significance has helped form my self identity.  He is still teaching. 

At Shadow Rock, we call this awareness "being in right relationship to history" or "perceiving and responding to God's newest thrust in the midst of history."  The Quakers call it letting your life speak.

What decisions are facing you?  How will your response to events and situations fit into the unfolding of history?  How does your story fit into the story of humanity?

And enjoy Glee tonight...

Comments

[Dee Dee Allan]

Tell that man to leave you alone! Seriously, I get what you're talking about. That is why I get obsessed with an author and want to read everything they've ever written - some of my favorite sagas are Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books - not great literature, but I just love the characters and their journeys. And the His Dark Materials trilogy is another that I became engrossed with - I know all the speculation that those are anti-God books, but I still enjoyed the stories and the quests. I also loved Phillip Gulley's Harmoney series - again, wonderful characters.
As far as Glee goes, I think there is something more than just the music - there's the idea of being accepted for who you are, feeling safe to really be who you are - I love that show.

[DH]

Let it be known that Karen GIVES as good as she gets, if not moreso! And a little feistiness in a marriage is a good thing; you don't want it to get to bland and boring.

[Jim Martin]

Well, I've been thinking of watching GLEE ... guess I have to now!