Parents you are fiction writers! We have just begun exploring the role of the biblical text and it’s influence on our personal “text.” Part of the journey into awareness is that we are constantly telling ourselves stories of how we view the world.
Parents few things are more important to the development of your child than the stories you pass on to them, as you help them learn to view the world. From the time they are little you being reading to them (some of you did this while they were in the womb) and then telling them stories, stories you make up when you go to bed at night, nursery rhymes, family history stories, and on the list goes.
But where things really get interesting is when kids on the playground start messing with their stories. They get picked last for the kickball team. They are in the last group crossing the finish line for field day. Their name doesn’t make it on the board where the “smart kids” are listed. All of a sudden the pristine story you have been telling them is getting jacked around and they begin to privately question and ponder things that shape and reshape their personal storytelling. That is the beginning of where our spirituality, view of God, view of self and scripting we live into are formed.
In the month of September the Transformational Trek Tribe looks at this self storying, it’s orgins, sources and role in vertical development and formation. How does our personal storying intersect God’s storying and the stories we inherit tacitly from culture? We will also be looking at one of the researchers and authors that has done us a major service by doing the homework for us to understand the spirituality of children.
If you have been putting off check this out maybe this is the month to jump in. We had a half a dozen new people sign up yesterday to join us on the journey. Hope you are next to join us.
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“Is your life fact or fiction,” seems like something of stupid question doesn’t it? Fiction comes from the Latin fictum meaning “created.” Fiction when it comes to narrative is a story that has at least parts if not all of it that are “created” by the author and do not represent anything in the real factual world.
Hmmmm….
For the last couple months I have alternated blog posts between my personal story of awakening through a bone fishing experience and about reading the text of scripture with new metaphors and eyes. One seemed more academic, the other more personal. One seemed more engaging the other a bit dry. The next series of posts though will bring the two together in a not so obvious connection. And hopefully both posts sets will live in new ways
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A script, as in drama script, is the last metaphor possibility I suggest in The Bible as Improv.
Each metaphor has it’s own unique contribution and limitations. But a drama script is a particularly helpful one. This is not one I came up with. NT Wright first used this in an article that if you haven’t seen is worth the read sometime. He further develops it in his massive opening volume on Christian origins entitled, The New Testament and the People of God. Again most of you reading this blog will be familiar with his work, if you haven’t read the first 3 volumes of what will be his life’s work you need to (volume 2, volume 3. two more are forthcoming) He suggests that maybe the bible as we have it is the first four acts of a five act play or a drama. The fifth act however is lost and that situation needs to be remedied. So we have a couple options.
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In our modern world we have used a metaphor for approaching our sacred text that may be responsible for a growing set of problems. We have said the Bible is our Owner’s Manual for Life, and we start using this idea early. Metaphors are lenses we use to give us insight. But we have to remember the limits of metaphors. They are illustrative. Metaphors work because there is a an element of truth that rings clear. But metaphors breakdown. Metaphors are culture specific. Metaphors that work today may not work tomorrow. We have been referring to the Bible as an “Owners Manual for Life,” and that metaphor has outlasted it’s welcome. Life can’t be negotiated with an owners manual. Life is too dynamic and too situational to yield to simple looked up entries in an index that refers us to a page for “the answer.”
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