I wonder if story-telling is the soul making a backup.
This occurred to me yesterday when I found myself telling someone new the same stories that Iāve told every other someone-new in recent memory. This is perhaps just me choosing the same well-worn introductory tracks as a time-saver, hereās who I am in a hundred words or less, but thatās a non-starter if Iād rather talk about how Iām pretty sure none of us are only ourselves. So!
I posit that we are, more truly than we normally sense or experience, a network, and that love is another word for flow within that network. Also that the story-telling instinct exists to spread around the only things we truly have ourselvesāāāour particular time- and context-bound experiences, and the impressions theyāve made on us. So that, when we as individuals are gone, we as deltas will live on.
Abeās dad is here for the weekend. Heās actually the āsomeone newā that I mentioned earlier; I went with that descriptor seeing as how yesterday was the first time that he and I had any meaningful amount of time together. The guyās incredible. Or (and? because?), he gets out of the way of Jesus. Iām sitting here typing and looking at a pad of notes that I was jotting down during our conversationāāāall variations on a theme, that itās just God, and us, and freedom in love. For there is now no condemnation. We are all created different, with different flawsāāāyet God wants to have a relationship with us all. And can. (And thatās the proof, I think. Love wins, across every single combination of flaws and faults, because love is the act of connecting without regard to flaws and faults. It can do nothing but win.)
Anyway though, Rudy gets it. āWe may not understand each other,ā he said, āwe may not be the same ā¦ ābut hello!āā. Hello, my friend, hello person that I donāt understand or agree with. Hello, how are you?
Hereās a thing heās realized in this last decade: āJesus created me, for this moment. And the more in tune I am to Jesus, the more peace I have but alsothe more I fit in to His plan. [ā¦] Acknowledge His love, and that His love has us here.ā
And thatās not a thing Iād registered before, in those terms. Thereās almost an urgency to it. If you assume the perspective that your particular combination of flaws and faults has significant potential in the presence of love, and further that love is omnipresent, then every moment becomes manifestly purposeful. You are here, unavoidably; from there, you can be merely yourself, or you can choose love, and be the network. The family, the village, the love, the kingdom, I donāt know what word to use here. In love, in connection, there is more than just me. Thankfully.
If story-telling is making backups, itās a sign that weāre subconsciously, fundamentally, oriented upward, into the larger stream, which I think is all we ever were.
Onward and upward.
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