Telling a Story

"Experts believe that stories go beyond our capacity for keeping us entertained. We think in narrative structures. We connect events and emotions and instinctively transform them into a sequence that can be easily understood. It's a uniquely human achievement. We all want to share our stories, whether it is the trick we saw at the party, the bad day at the office or the beautiful sunset we saw on vacation... We turn facts into similes and metaphors, and even fantasies. We polish the rough edges of our lives so that they feel whole. Our stories make us the people we are and, sometimes, the people we want to be. They give us our identity and a sense of community. And if the story is a good one, it might even make us smile."
--Excerpt from Marco Tempest: A magical tale (with augmented reality) from TED.com

We all want to share our stories... can there be a more human achievement?  Our entire lives are the narrative steps of a wider story in which we live.  We're all constantly trying to share that story with one another...   The point of blogs such as these are to create the "digital campfires.

Stories are here to be shared and given meaning within the wider story.  Indeed, a single step merely described is a mechanical action, but a step in a direction is a life with purpose.  We are all constantly trying to create narratives, though they're often imperfect, because if we figure out what those actions mean in the wider sense, we can begin to discern our identity and community.

It's an odd paradox... we must simultaneously be the character within our stories and its narrator.  Maybe we aren't THE NARRATOR (after all there's only one of those) but maybe we desire to enact some element, some divine share of that personhood that we share in common.

One of the odd things that has always struck me is how much people like to talk about themselves... we all do it and yet we're almost all offended by it at the same time.  Meanwhile, it also serves to put things in order for the one telling the story.  There's a fine line between the braggart and the teller of tales, but both tap into that uniquely human need.  Both embellish their stories and try and give them meaning.  But we condemn the one and listen to the other.   Maybe because the first embellishes for his own sake whereas the second for the hearer's...

In the end, I find myself realizing two things: (1) we must share our stories, it's essential to we are and (2) we must listen to others' stories as well.  We all need to listen and be heard.

On the Society

Many readers may know that my family and I are followers of the Society of Jesus, colloquially known as the Jesuits.  My fiance and I attend a Jesuit Church and often seek them out wherever we go.  Throughout the blog, I'll undoubtedly reference them, but I wanted to introduce them in light of a recent event that is unfortunately all too common among Catholics of late - a general disparagement of the Society.

The modern Jesuits are often criticized as being too liberal whether it is America magazine to the Social Justice that often finds its way into their homilies.  To some extent, I understand where this is coming from and to those that know me, a political Conservative, the irony is thick enough.  But I think that it is in that that I find the reason why I am attracted to them.  Church should always challenge you.  A preacher that gives the same homily once every three years does his congregation no favors (though I would not pretend to understand the pressures that they are under in the modern era).

Further, importantly is the way they challenge me mentally.  The Society (and those that follow them) are some of the most educated people I have ever met.  They see connections that most miss, their homilies tend to be 10 minutes of religious gold, and most importantly, when I talk to them, I feel like they know more about Catholicism and Philosophy than I do.

The Society I know is the one started by my patron, St. Ignatius de Loyola.  It's an Organization that Chris Lowney in Heroic Leadership points out is run around the principles of heroic leadership, always aiming for the Magis; ingenuity, thinking outside the box; self awareness, knowing what can and cannot be traded; and finally, love, the ability to see people in the best possible light.  This is the idea that Ignatius had - the insight to reject the practices around him and tell his people to get out there.

For St. Ignatius God was not an impersonal being infinitely removed from us that we have to worship in Church.  Rather, He was a friend, a close companion, someone you talked to not in a ritualized prayer, but like someone you knew, someone you had highs with, someone you got angry at.  It is this aspect, the God-man that meets us everyday in every moment where we are that dictates what we in turn must do (if we are to imitate Him). We must turn and meet others where they are calling them as CS Lewis states in The Last Battle to come higher up and further in.