Living a Story

I started reading Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". He writes about the process of making a movie of his life, about his discoveries of what makes a good story. He writes that the elements that make a story meaningful are the same that make life meaningful. So he applies the elements of story to his own life, writing about how to make your life meaningful, a worthwhile story.

It's gotten me thinking about my own life: am I living a good story? If my life were made into a movie, would anyone watch it? I mean, if I could somehow get beyond my idea that every good story has to have giant robots or superheros, or at least a couple epic battle scenes with slow motion and lots of explosions; if its possible to have a good story without those things (I have yet to have had any slow motion fights with evil forces), then could my life be a story worth telling and retelling?

I can see it unfold: a scrawny little girl from a big family in a prairie town so small its almost lost in the waving grass; lost in the world her own imagination- that part could be exciting- lots of princesses, dragons, elves, and maybe even a battle scene or two- but that's not the kind of story we want, we want something real, relateable. Well, then the story gets boring. She was a pretty good kid, quiet, who stayed out of trouble. But, I guess the girl grows, learns to live in the real world, and then even fight for her own place and voice in it. She grows up, goes to school across the country, goes to Africa by herself and runs around bare foot in the red dust with smiling black children, the only white person in a small village on a hill. Then she comes home, a changed person, finishes school, moves to Korea, learns, grows, and changes some more, comes home full of experiences and memories. Then maybe she stays home for a bit, then moves to Sudan where she experiences more hurt and darkness than she thought possible, comes home again with a new awareness of life, humanity, and God; and then begins her work with Sudanese refugees, settles down, has a family....or maybe she comes back from Korea and is stuck waitressing, living in her parent's basement for years and years while her dreams of Africa grow faint...

So, my life, at least since I left for University, hasn't been completely boring, but random experiences, as exciting or touching as they might be, don't make a good story. There has to be some sort of unity, some sort of driving force, a conflict that needs to be solved, character development. I can make all sorts of cool memories all over the world, but they are meaningless if they don't somehow make me a better person, if they don't serve some sort of greater purpose than to be a good picture on facebook. Frodo needed to try to destroy the ring, Bourne needed to find out how he became so badass and why people were trying to kill him, Optimus needed to help save the human race from evil decepticons. They didn't just have a few good battles for the special effects.

Donald Miller also talked about the bad things that happen in our lives. He said that "When we watch the news, we grieve all of [the tragedy], but when we go to the movies, we want more of it. Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master story teller." Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been half the story without the death, bloodshed, and pain everyone experienced; and the happiness felt at the end when the ring was destroyed was infinitely greater because of how hard the journey was to get there. But in my life, or in the lives of those around me, or the lives of those I read of in the news, I am unwilling to accept that pain and injustice could ever serve a greater purpose, could ever be part of a grand story more beautiful and more powerful then I could ever imagine. I get angry at God alot.

God does have a great story in mind for each of us, we just have to choose to live that story rather than fighting back and choosing our own path of least resistance, or of more excitement but less purpose. Like "The Adjustment Bureau", another movie that recently got me thinking, we can fight the plan that God has for us, but unlike that movie, our own ideas will always lead us into a worse, a less meaningful story. I mean, whatever story we end up living will have been God's plan, because I don't think anything happens outside of that, but I think He also knows it could have been infinitely better if we would have followed His prodding.

So, am I living a good story? Am I working towards some meaningful goal? Developing into a person the world would miss if I died tomorrow? Probably not, but I guess I could start. I could begin intentionally living a meaningful story.

I do feel like I need some explosives though. Or at least a badass motorbike.