The Good News Story

The Daily Meditations continue to explore the “seven stories” inspired by Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins’s e-book The Seventh Story. Father Richard describes how the gospel offers us a new story: 

If we’re honest, culture forms us much more than the gospel. It seems we have kept the basic storyline of human history in place rather than allow the gospel to reframe and redirect the story. Except for those who have experienced grace at their core, Christianity has not created a new story, “a new mind” (Romans 12:2), or a “new self” (Ephesians 4:24). The old and tired win/lose scenarios seem to be in our cultural hard drive. The experience of grace at the core of reality is much more imaginative and installs new win/win programs in our psyche, but has been neglected and unrecognized by most of Christianity.

Up to now, Christianity has largely imitated cultural stories instead of transforming them. Reward/punishment and good people versus bad people have been the plot lines of most novels, plays, operas, movies, and conflicts. It’s the only way a dualistic mind, unrenewed by prayer and grace, can perceive reality. It is almost impossible to switch this mind with a short sermon during a Sunday church service.

As long as we remain within a dualistic, win/lose script, Christianity will continue to appeal to self-interested moralisms and myths. It will never rise to the mystical banquet that Jesus offers us. The spiritual path and life itself will be mere duty instead of delight, “jars of purification” instead of 150 gallons of intoxicating wine at the end of the party (John 2:6–10). We will focus on maintaining order by sanctified stories of violence instead of moving toward a higher order of love and healing, which is the heart of the gospel. [1]

The great traditions give name, shape, and ultimate direction to what our heart inherently knows from other sources. This is not new or unorthodox but exactly what Paul taught: “Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and divinity—however invisible—have been there for the mind to see in the things of creation” (Romans 1:20). Similarly, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, “It is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down to us?’ Nor is it beyond the seas, so that you need to ask, ‘Who will cross the seas and bring it back to us?’ No, the word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Deuteronomy 30:11–14). We must honor the infinite mystery of our own life’s journey to recognize God in it. Or is it the other way around? It seems that God is not going to let us get close unless we bring all of ourselves—in love—including our brokenness. That’s why the Good News really is good news. Nothing is wasted. [2]

The Story of Victimization

Buddhist teacher angel Kyodo williams describes how clinging to harmful stories may increase our suffering:

The movies we replay in our heads—held on to from lives past—cause us to recycle stories that no longer serve us, if they ever did.

We run these stories over and over again and like hamsters on a wheel; we go nowhere in our inner life development, and as a result we suffer as adults from the wounds of our childhood.

Slowly these toxic stories crowd out the potential for joy and ease that is the birthright of every human being…. If we simply give ourselves over to this narrative, to the storyline of “Uns and Nots”—unloved, unseen, unappreciated, unwanted, uncared for, not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, not powerful, not rich enough, not the right color or gender or position or class—then we abdicate the one thing that can reposition our relationship to the entire experience of our life: responsibility.

I often say, “It’s not your fault, but it’s your responsibility.” It is quite true that there are many conditions in life that confer a less-than-desirable experience. But it is also true that at the end of your days on this planet, your life will have been lived only by you. How you experience whatever conditions life hands you correlates directly to how much responsibility you choose to take. None of us can control all (if any) of the conditions, but we can choose how we experience the conditions we find ourselves in.

If we do not begin to debunk the deep inner myth that many of us carry that we do not deserve greater joy, love, or ease in our lives because we are _______ (fill in the blank with your choice of Uns or Nots), then we condemn ourselves to the role of victims in our own movies. [1]

Brian McLaren witnesses how the Seventh Story can free us from other unjust stories, including the story of victimization:

The stories that we’ve looked at—the stories of domination, revolution, purification, isolation—these stories create victims. These stories victimize people, and very often people’s lives are devastated, destroyed, or ended by these stories. We might be able to say that in millions of people’s lives, their experience of being a victim of these other stories becomes the biggest reality of their lives. This reality becomes the story of victimization. Part of the Seventh Story framework is that it communicates to people who’ve been victimized by other stories and says, “We’d like to give you permission to not let that story be the defining factor in your life, but rather to help you see and understand yourself in some other way.” Domination creates victims. Revolution creates victims. Purification creates victims. But victims have an alternative in how they define their lives. The Seventh Story can liberate us from our lives being defined by oppression, abuse, exploitation, marginalization, or vilification in some way. [2]

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From John Chaffee

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.“

– Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist and Philosopher

Everything is our teacher.  Not just our friends and our successes, but our annoyances and our failures.  Perhaps it is because I am approaching 40 in December, but I have been internally shifting to the things that Jung calls the “second half of life.”  The first half is all about building our ego and sense of self, the second half is all about letting it go and learning from our failures.

It is not easy, but it is good work to get around to doing.  Keep growing.  Everything is your teacher.

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