The Story's Still Not Over

I love stories, and the stories behind stories. For the past few weeks I’ve been traveling and listening to lots of stories: about people who lived long ago, recording their tales with stones and paint. and about people alive today, remembering events from before I was born, or sharing their stories in photos and Facebook posts.  Lots of stories - of conflict, change, endurance, enterprise.

Swedish Rune Stone, Swedish History Museam

In recent conversations with relatives near and far, I've been reminded that some stories stir delight, while others are less eagerly told. What do we do when our own stories seem to shatter into pieces, or stall to unsalvageable conclusions?

I sometimes think of Emily Dickinson’s poem:

My life closed twice before its close;
  It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
  A third event to me. . .

I’ve been struck, traveling this month in Finland, Estonia, and Sweden, at how lives sometimes seem to close, at how chapters end abruptly. War separates families, redirects careers, disrupts and rearranges. Peace does the same. As does poverty. Traveling through European cities, we see evidence of lives uprooted, stories pulled from one place to another.

My own life has closed more than twice, with abrupt changes far beyond my control: relocations without goodbyes, plans suspended without explanation. With each twist of plot, the adventures grow deeper, the challenges richer, the rewards sweeter, than I could have foreseen, yet I still struggle when the story takes an unexpected turn.

As part of my Sabbath season several years ago, I found myself working through To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future,  Dan Allender’s book and small group process.

Allender challenges his readers to look closely at the chapters that have gone before, to examine the places of pain, defeat and struggle, and to see where God may be leading, to celebrate the ways He’s been at work.

A friend who wanted to do this asked if I would help launch a small To Be Told story group. At the time I was busy, but when my schedule became clearer, I came back to the idea. How hard could it be to write chapters from our lives, share them with others, and see where God is leading?

Turns out it’s far harder than I thought. I’m great at compartments, and at stashing those dark, unfinished parts of the story in cupboards where I don’t need to see them. 

But the story isn’t over, and as I've rummaged through experiences I thought I'd left behind, I see patterns repeating, places where fear and unresolved pain have sometimes kept me from moving as freely as I’d like

Here’s one of the assignments from the To Be Told workbook: 

To your well of stories [a list of personal scenes to explore], add scenes where you saw redemption and where it was absent; where great suffering occurred and where nondramatic, routine suffering occurred; where there was peace and where there was resolution. In other words, add stories of shalom, shalom shattered, shalom sought, and denouement (58).

It's easy to point back to points where shalom shatters, not too hard to find places of joy, but "redemption"? Does redemption play out in the ongoing chapters of our lives?

Here’s a follow-up question: “”Which stories are you avoiding?” (59)

As nations, families, communities, churches, there are some stories we tell, some we avoid. Some stories expand in engaging ways. Others cause worried looks, clearing of throat, sudden change of subject.   

According to Allender, 

Stories are meant to be told. . . . Telling them is a gift you give others, By telling your stories, you offer a bit of yourself in a world of small talk, pager messages, and email. You offer others a glimpse of what it means to be human and of the struggles that are common to us all, and you invite others into community (122).

Stories may be gifts, but it's also true that processing the past is hard, painful work. Staying open to the future depends on facing that work, chapter by difficult chapter.

And redemption becomes visible when we take time to trace shalom both shattered and restored. 

Just months ago I had no idea that my story would take me to the Finnish countryside, or on a watery excursion in a land of lakes and islands, or to the streets of Tallinn, Estonia, where not so long ago the story of freedom seemed gone forever. 

I trace my own story with amazement, wondering where the latest twists and turns will lead. And listen with thanksgiving to other, larger stories I hope to share in future posts. 

I don’t know the end of my story, or of anyone else’s. I do know the story isn’t over, and that in ways that go beyond understanding, painful chapters can be redeemed and broken pasts can lead to unimagined futures. 

Photos from the ongoing chapters of Tallinn Church, Estonia, a church
that has been part of the story of Tallinn since before 1219.

[This summer I'm reworking some earlier posts, as travel and time outside limit my time for blogging. This blog appeared, in slightly different form, on July 17, 2011] 

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments. 

Lenten Song: Remembering Ranan

Dancing Clapping Trees, Gwen Meharg, 1990s, US

  You will go out in joy 
   and be led forth in peace; 
the mountains and hills 
   will burst into song
   before you, 
and all the trees of the field 
   will clap their hands.
         (Isaiah 55)

My yard is full of birdsong: song sparrows, tufted titmice, wrens setting aside their normal complaints to celebrate spring from a perch along the picket fence. Even the blue jays’ metallic squawks sound more melodic than usual. Spring is here, the daffodils are blooming, and the tree tops are exploding with exuberant calls.

At this point in Lent, I often feel an inner disconnect. The world is brightening, days are lengthening, yet I’m still in a place of prayerful grief.  My experiments with fasting remind me of how many hungry children hold life by a thread. My next meal is just steps away, while millions of mothers have no next meal to offer their starving children.

This world is a broken place, and feels more broken by the day. Our food supply is held captive by a narrowing handful of global agri-monopolies. Our water supply is threatened by ever-more-reckless strategies for maintaining dependence on fossil fuel. Our health is jeopardized by genetic modification in everything from popcorn to sugar to canola oil. Our fragmented society hides its wounds behind closed doors, but the pain spills out in addictions, homelessness, spiraling anger, epidemic depression. Think and pray too long in any one direction and I find myself deep in lingering lament.

One of our Lenten readings this past week was the servant song of Isaiah 52:13 through 53, a Messianic prophecy written seven hundred years before Christ's birth and painful death:

Christ is Nailed to the Cross, Anna Kocher,
 2006,  US

Surely he took up our pain 
   and bore our suffering, 
yet we considered him 
   punished by God, 
   stricken by him, and afflicted. 
But he was pierced 
    for our transgressions, 
   he was crushed for our iniquities; 
the punishment that brought us peace 
   was on him, 
   and by his wounds we are healed. 
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, 
   each of us has turned to our own way; 
and the Lord has laid on him 
   the iniquity of us all.

Reading a few verses before, to catch the context, I was struck at this command:

Listen! 
Your watchmen lift up their voices; 
   together they shout for joy. 
When the Lord returns to Zion, 
   they will see it with their own eyes. 
Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, 
for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.

It would make sense to burst into songs of joy when the restoration is accomplished, when the promised redemption is accomplished. But this instruction is given to “you ruins of Jerusalem.” The restoration promised is nowhere in sight. The book of Isaiah was written during a time of deepening disobedience, on the unavoidable eve of invasion, captivity, destruction. Burst into songs of joy in the middle of that? How?

Digging back through the early Hebrew words, I find eight words for “singing,” thirteen more for “sing.” Some of the words have interesting double meanings: one, “massa'”, can mean singing, lifting a load, carrying a burden. Another, “`anah,” can mean affliction, humility, songs of lament.

The word used in Isaiah is anr, transliterated “ranah”, which can mean to overcome, to cry out, shout for joy, give a ringing cry, rejoice.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite Old Testament stories, from 2 Chronicles 20. The people of Judah were confronted with a “vast army” and came to King Jehoshaphat in fear. Jehoshaphat, in front of his people, cried out to God: “Are you not the God who is heaven?” He recounted the times God intervened for his people, described the danger confronting them, and confessed: “We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

from Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, Frans Boels,
16th century, Flanders

God spoke through a man in the crowd, Jehaziel, an apparent nobody, who promised that if they went out to a nearby pass to watch, God would defeat their enemy for them.

“After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.’”

As thy began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes agains the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”

The story ends:

“The fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard how the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. And the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was in peace, for his God had given him rest on every side.”

There’s much in that story that captures my interest, but the idea of singing in the face of fear and danger has always challenged me. How do we sing, or shout for joy, when the evidence around us points to disaster?

Back to Isaiah:

 Burst into songs of joy together, 
   you ruins of Jerusalem, 
for the Lord has comforted his people, 
   he has redeemed Jerusalem.

I don’t know much about Hebrew tenses, but there’s something odd happening here: right now, in ruins, burst into song. Because you’ve been comforted. Because you’ve been redeemed.

Really? What if I don’t see it?

Reading on through the servant song, I come out the other side to a similar instruction:

“Sing, barren woman, 
   you who never bore a child; 
burst into song, shout for joy, 
   you who were never in labor; 
because more are the children of the desolate woman 
   than of her who has a husband,” 
            says the Lord.

In a patriarchal culture where status depended on producing sons, where the future was guaranteed by multiple descendents, the barren woman was an object of scorn or pity, marginalized, deprived of future joy.

Yet she’s instructed to shout for joy anyway, to burst into song. Because she has more children (already?) than those less desolate. It doesn't seem to make sense.

Yet Isaiah insists that we live in the knowledge of God’s faithfulness in the past, and in celebration of his goodness in the future. Even in the pain of the present.

Rejoice, Monica Stewart, ca 2005, US

I find that hard. Praying this past week with a friend whose present is painful in the extreme, we wondered together: How do we live joyfully, right now, when every day hurts? How do we stay completely present to those around us, to the needs of the day, not shut it out, not medicate it away, not close ourselves off while we wait for that far-ff “someday” when things will be better?

Isaiah’s answer is strange, yet powerful. Ranan. Sing for joy. Sing in the promise of redemption, in the brokenness of today.

If you need logic, don’t even bother. It defies logic. Yet, the reality holds true. As Jehoshaphat and his people learned, as David and the other psalmists demonstrated, as Paul and Silas found, singing in prison while an earthquake opened the doors, joyful praise leads to freedom, sometimes opening doors in the physical world around us, more often allowing us to stand in a reality invisible to others, but no less real: the kingdom of God unfolding, here yet not here, now, not yet.

This joyful song is personal, but also political, as the stories in New and Old Testament suggest, as Freedom Riders of the sixties found, as the Singing Revolutions of 1987 to 1991 made clear: the internal freedom that comes with joyful song can bring the courage to trust God’s work in the broken halls of power, the disrupted dialogue of politics. Germans in Liepzig, fueled by the words of the Sermon on the Mount, filled the streets with singing in defiance of the Soviet police.  Lithuanians in Vilnius sang hymns and folk songs in public squares, then joined with Estonians and Latvians in a human chain of more than a million people stretching four hundred miles, a chain of freedom that helped lead to the dissolution of the USSR.

Where does that courage come from? It starts in honest lament, grows in times of prayer and study, finds power in the knowledge that God has been faithful to his people, across time, across all human borders. Alive in the present, we stand in the knowledge of the past, and celebrate the invisible, promised future. Waiting for Easter, for change, for healing, we sing. Awake, my heart. Burst into song. Rejoice. Ranan, ruined cities, for you have been redeemed.

Mu süda, ärka üles
Ja kiida Loojat lauldes,
Kes kõik head meile annab
Ja muret ikka kannab.  


Awake, my heart
And praise the Creator in song
Who provides us with all that is good
And bears our burdens too. 
  (Estonian folk song 
  sung during the singing revolution)


This is the sixth in a Lenten series:
     Looking toward Lent
     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham
     Lenten Silence: Charash, Be Still
     Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb    
     Lenten Submission: Rethinking Hupotassō

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the  _comments link below to open the comment box.