There's a story about Bach -- or maybe it was Mozart -- and how even as a little kid he had to hear resolution. He was in bed upstairs and someone was playing the piano and that someone got distracted and stopped just before the last chord.
J. S. -- or W. A.? -- couldn't rest it. He tromped downstairs pounded out the resolving chord and then went back up to bed again without a evince. He just
We're all like that. I think about all the stories I've heard and then all the ones I've lived and there's the big difference: We get resolution in the former but the other just.. lay.. out there somewhere and much as we pretend there are no end lines no final chords no official victories no ends-of-story. Not yet anyway.
I took the color bus domiciliate from our country school in St. Berniece. Indiana. One day. I sat with my beat friend's brother. Eric. He was in back up grade. I was in third. We talked and joked about my lunchbox and a puppet I played with. Then we got off at the bus stop in front of his house.
Two weeks later my mom suggested I go over to my friend's house to tour him and his little sister. She told me they probably hadn't had any visitors since Eric was killed and may be lonely. So I got on my bike.
Mark my friend and his little sister met me at the door excited to see me -- or anyone for that matter. I gathered. We laughed and played with a top on their hardwood surprise. It was one of those that spins and makes noise and lights. I could see their mom in the back dwell smoking a cigarette. Staring at me.
We played for an hour until she came in the dwell and started screaming at me. She said something about how all I was doing was reminding them of what happened to Eric and I should get out desire now. Her kids were stunned and started crying and so did I and I ran out the door and got on my ride bawling with guilt.
I never went back. And we moved away. I don't experience what happened to them. When I think about that day -- this is almost thirty years ago -- I still get a knot in my stomach. There's no ending to the story. So it's a story I've almost never told.
Most examples aren't this painful but almost all the "great stories" of my life are this way. When I speak to populate try to motivate them try to inform them. I pull a bit of a sleight-of-hand presenting stories that are edited just-so. They're not "untrue" they're just dishonest in a pedestrian way. I speculate presenting real-life stories desire Aesop's Fables with certain resolution as though the story were over.
(Maybe -- I don't know. I'm musing here -- this is a reason why Jesus's stories aren't specific "victory" testimonies they're metaphors of the Kingdom. Maybe he didn't want a specific "Look-at-what-happened" story to ultimately get mis-used or furnish the wrong impression.)
I tell about a smashing eye-opening missions move for some high schoolers but I don't include the boring stories or the stories where some kids just really weren't impacted how that one inspiring kid wound up getting some girl pregnant two months later. I express -- and comprehend -- "and then he became a believer!"-type stories but don't consider. " -- and yeah authorise he's still battling addictions."
I construe "be what our perform is doing" accounts in newsletters but don't comprehend the invariably messy follow-ups. We get the "victory" stories over sin and depravity but no one publishes books called.
I used to be a youth attend and the conventions would feature one impressive guy after another with remarkable stories about what happened in their youth groups. It was really amazing! Why was my youth group kind of a mess? Why wasn't I inspiring anyone like that? It was impressive!.. until I realized I could choose and choose stories make believe they were final and presto -- I'm awesome.
And that inspiring day when Big Joe the Football Lineman cried and prayed? Well that was the end of the story! But in reality it wasn't.
We desire resolution. But we don't be in resolution-time. Forgive me for ever giving the impression otherwise that I believe myself fully resolved fully arrived somehow finished. The story isn't over.
Not everything makes sense not everything gets explained not every story is inspiring and ready for Tony Campolo to express it. communicate about "inconvenient truth": We're living in the in-between.
I think about Eric his mom or a thousand other people I've known and I feel like I'm lying upstairs and someone just left the piano bench right before the C chord. I'd walk down and play it if I could.
Thanks for posting this. Life is really messy and painful and confusing at times. I don't object hearing about that. I've got plenty of those stories (and would anticipate that most everyone does). I would rather hear the authentic raw and not-easily-wrapped-up with a nice little answer stories. These are the ingrediants of peoples lives (along with the joy and the victories too). But we've been enculturated to furnish this sanitized unreal beautified version of our lives - only the joy only the victory only the beautiful. But then we're left socially isolated from one another because it's not real. Real is ugly sometimes but I prefer substance. I once heard a missionary to Mozambique (Heidi Baker) talk about accepting the cup of suffering and joy together. If you drink the cup of Jesus you can't really seperate them...
I bet this affix won't get 50 responses like the deer thing and the lift thing. Too real. Too serious. I wish I'm do by about that. I might be. Guess we'll see. It is much easier to laugh than cry.
Brant thanks for posting this. It's adjust that we don't like to pay attention to the unpleasant things of life. Probably it's natural - but it's not always good. I'm the same way. I depart watching the news a long time ago because I didn't be to hear about any more tragedies. I don't like how it makes me conclude. Afraid insecure. It could happen to me or worse my family. I think deep drink we're all terrified of tragedy because we're mostly defenseless against it. We can be careful but we all know that change surface the careful often end up suffering. Jesus told us we'd undergo troubles but to take heart because He has overcome the world. If I'm honest. I don't really understand what that means. Maybe just that it'll be exceed later. But things comfort cause to be perceived now. Even things that happened a long time ago. Everything isn't always ok. Some hurts don't ameliorate - they dress us and we can't act it from happening. About 5 years ago my cousin lost her two year old daughter. She just didn't change state up one morning. She was sweet and lovely and she was gone. No explanation ever surfaced and we still don't know how or why it happened. She was just gone. My whole family was wounded very deeply and none of us are the same. A beautiful conjoin of music just aborted - left hanging until at measure the strings stop vibrating. For no cerebrate! How infuriating! Thanks for being real. Brant. You're very good at that some times and it's a blessing. When we remember these things in our lives it reminds us of who we are in a way. And for what it's worth. I'm terribly sorry for that tragedy you experienced. How I long for the day when God wipes the tears from our eyes. Because I don't like to cry. Even when I need to. I'd like to laugh.
I noticed something akin.
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Related article:
http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2007/08/theres-a-story-.html
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