A Tale of Two Stories

Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life? ~Mary Oliver

Like an unwelcome squatter a story has taken over my brain.

As squatters will, it has rearranged the furniture, fluffed up the pillows, put up its feet and sits there, smirking, “What can you do?”

It started with a photograph I couldn’t put down, morphed into a poem that ended strangely, and before I knew it, chaotic voices demanded a hearing, a prominent place on the page.

As I shared the story’s theme over coffee and scones with a friend, the plot sounded familiar, as if written long ago.

And so it was. Because only two stories have ever been told.

Stories We Have Devised

go something like this:

A disillusioned King Solomon: I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

A  despairing Macbeth: Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

A cheesy Brad Pitt, his recent commercial for Chanel No 5: It’s not a journey. Every journey ends but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune.

It’s a story told every time we shrug our shoulders and walk away.

The day we stop searching in the ashes for a glimmer of light; when we give in to the uncaring winds of fate; when we believe we are nothing and our lives have no meaning, we’ve embraced the story’s false claims.

Stories That Turn Out To Be True

go something like this:

• Life is not a circle. The world as we know it had a beginning and it will have an end. A day of accounting will come, when justice will triumph, when all that’s been broken will be restored.
• You are unique, there is no other. You matter and no effort will be in vain.
•  Where there is no way, a way will open–help is as close as one desperate prayer.
• Dare to hope, hold fast to your dreams, put your trust in the One who planted them in you.

It’s the second of these stories I choose to write.

Which story are you writing with your life?

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