Just Whose Story Is It?

I've been listening to a new album lately. It's by The Belle Brigade.  Apparently it's their first album so, of course, the album is also called The Belle Brigade.  I think I'll name my first album, "Anything Other Than My Band's Name".  Anyhow, in an addictive-as-heck little song entitled Where Not To Look for Freedom,it shares these lyrics:

You cannot find your wisdom
In someone else's story
But if you find your glory
Tell me where to look for freedom

I like this lyric.  I like it for alot of reasons:

1. I talk about story all the time.
2. I absolutely disagree with their statement.
3. I absolutely agree with their statement.

I absolutely disagree that you can't find your wisdom in other people's stories: that's precisely what Scripture is about.  It's about finding wisdom (and lots of other things) in the stories of other people.

I also absolutely agree that you can't find your wisdom in other people's stories: often I have needed to live certain experiences myself.  It's not enough to read about other people who experienced something.  I need to experience it myself.  It needs to become my story.

Perhaps this is the mystery of Scripture: somehow these ancient words on the page are able to become something much more than the stories of other people who lived a long time ago and experienced life, the universe, and everything in a completely different context than I do.  Somehow that particular text (in a way unlike most any other text I've encountered) has the ability to become my story.

I think that's a key part of the invitation of the gospel: to understand ourselves to be part of the grand story...to come to understand that these words that were written thousands of years ago, in languages and contexts very different from our own, are - in fact - our story, too.

Then the real power of the gospel comes when we understand that our stories - the ones we literally live - are a part of that same story.

Comments

[Bsearight]

Two things:

1) Good insight. I wonder, though, about whether the story of Scripture can also be said to be beyond my experience in another way. I'm not saying it didn't arise from experience between God and us, but that we affirm that it witnesses to a greater reality that we (either do or don't) trust in. There is too much of the story that is entirely beyond my grasp... so, how do you and I share in that story and claim it to be the same story?

2) Where did our title bar go?

[Cheap True Religion Jeans]

I've been listening to a new album lately. It's by The Belle Brigade. Apparently it's their first album so, of course, the album is also called The Belle Brigade. I think I'll name my first album, "Anything Other Than My Band's Name".