Life: a story in search of a narrator

Before I talk about practices, I want to take a moment to explore the notion of narrative.

The title for this post is taken from an essay by Paul Ricoeur, 20th century philosopher, literary theorist, and interpreter of the Bible.  I came across the essay as I was developing my approach to interpreting the lives of some early Celtic saints, and its central thesis struck me as both important and useful.  In short, life as we actually experience it consists of a fairly random string of events, acts engaged in by ourselves and others which may or may not bear any relationship to each other.  In the face of that randomness, though, it appears to be a universal human instinct to create narratives, to construct stories that explain why we act as we do, why others act as they do, and whether and how we are connected to each other.  Ricoeur claims, and to a large extent I agree, that the construction of narrative is an essential human function, and that the tasks of both creating and interpreting our stories (and hearing and understanding other people's stories) are inescapable elements of a life well-lived.

As a Christian theologian, these statements make sense to me.  Before the Christian community developed creeds or propositions, groups of believers told each other stories.  They had inherited the sayings of Jesus (the Q text) and went on to create narratives we now know as Gospels to give those sayings shape and context.  Paul's letters were written earlier than the Gospels, and in them you can read his struggle to create something that resembles doctrine or theology.  In spite of his best efforts he often resorts to metaphors like straining to win a race, or anecdotes like his vision on the road to Damascus.  His default framework of making meaning of his life-transforming experience is to tell a brief story to illustrate what the event meant to him, and therefore what it should mean for other followers of Jesus Christ.

Here's the rub.  If story-telling is our default mode, we can (and mostly do) forget that the stories are just that -- stories we crafted to ascribe meaning to our random string of experiences.  And, instead of allowing ourselves to explore the meanings behind the stories, we too easily fall for the temptation to simply believe that the stories are factual rather than constructed and (mostly) metaphorical.  Stories become "facts," and their meanings get lost.  We believe what we've constructed about other people ("he's stupid," "she's shallow"), to their detriment, and we believe what we've constructed about ourselves (usually along the lines of, "I'm right").  Self-serving, and mostly to our own detriment as well.  

Here's where Mooji's pointings are so helpful.  In order to perceive the meaning behind the stories, he tells his listeners to contemplate the questions, "Who is doing this?"  "Who is thinking this?"  "Who is perceiving this?" This process of self-enquiry is intended to push past the constructed narratives and "perceive the perceiver," to become aware of that which is the Source of more than the Narrative, but of our very existence.

Here's where my interest in narrative and my interest in Mooji's pointings are coming together.  I have begun to work through the Gospels, starting with Matthew, engaging in the ages-old practice of interpretation, but seeking to discern the theme of Unity which I suspect to be the true meaning behind the constructed narratives of the Gospels.  I have begun to write up some of these reflections in a journal, and as they accumulate, I will share them here.  The essential question of the construction of narrative needed to be explored first before the interpretation of the narratives could have much meaning.  

In other words, I had to tell you the story of why this is important to me, before I could begin to share the actual reflections.   Ahhhhh.....  it's true!