Whose Story Is It, Anyway?

Life is pretty good at the moment.

I have a beautiful young wife, a mostly delightful young son, and another boy on the way. I've been reasonably successful in my chosen discipline, and our financial position is fairly strong, especially for our age bracket. We're all in good health. I'm exercising regularly, keeping a clean house, and eating well. I have (apparently) a substantial audience to my casual blog.

(There's a point to all this, it isn't just a bunch of bragging.)

The Bills even won their home opener.

When will the other shoe drop?

Actually, I spend way too many waking hours waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't think it's some kind of psychological anxiety. Even if our health or our financial stability got blown to bits tomorrow morning, I think we'd be okay. I don't think it's a question of measuring up to some sort of invisible external pressures either. All these I have kept since I was a child.

Jesus said to him, If you would be perfect, go, sell all your possessions, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.

Actually, there are a lot of good reasons to consider taking that passage at face value. And, of course, there are a lot of good reasons to do a little reading before unloading all your wealth.

The thought that's been helping me to sleep easier is that I am, most likely, not the protagonist. By which I mean, that whatever success or failure and whatever measure you apply to my own standing in the world, and however I might feel about my standing in the world, is likely unimportant to the story. Chances are that I am a secondary character. In the enormous and whirling story of history and in the divine drama of new creation the "myself" character is probably more important as James' father (a minor bit with two lines at the beginning of the scene) or my father's son (a non-speaking role that could be played by a girl if they're short on boys) or as Abby's uncle or someone's trumpet tutor.

That's really comforting. It's comforting to know think that your own big stories--the story of how we got the house, or the story of how I won the job, or the story of how we did once the second baby was born--are little stories, and that you don't even need to be the main character in those stories to hear them in their best telling.

That somehow makes the story seem a little more joyful and exciting. It's great fun to think that I might be sharing right now some tiny part of the story of the year the Bills finally won the Super Bowl.