Sunday, February 27, 2011

Story

18/365

I like to play video and computer games (but then, you already knew that).  Both the Best Husband Ever and I do, in fact, although we have different tastes in games.  He enjoys games that require skill and strategy, and his game of choice is Starcraft.

As for me, I love a good story.  Which is probably why I haven't really played too many games, because too often games' stories are not engaging (I've found this to be true for far too many books as well, sad to say).  But recently I started playing Dragon Age: Origins, and I'm in love.  Why?  Because the game leads you into a deeply compelling, epic, Lord of the Rings-esque story.  Something in my heart -- and, I think, in all human hearts -- cries yes to a compelling story. 

Which is what I think we all really want from life.  We each want to live out a deep and meaningful story over the course of our allotted years.  I'm reading a couple of books that talk about the idea of the life-story, but the one that has most captured my heart is Don Miller's latest, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  In 2003 Miller published a nonreligious memoir on Christian spirituality that made him famous with both Christian and secular crowds.  In the aftermath of his success, Miller found himself shrinking inward, his life stalling instead of taking off. 

When a team of movie makers approached him to make a movie out of the memoir, Miller was given the unique opportunity of seeing his life turned into a compelling story -- or really, a more compelling and directed story than it already was.   That got him to thinking about whether day-to-day life couldn't be funneled into creating a deep and engaged story, and so A Million Miles in a Thousand Years was born.  I started reading it today and am gobbling it up as fast as my eyes can travel the pages.  So far I am finding this book to be, in a word, amazing

Why am I writing about all this in conjunction with my Snapshot Sunday photo?  I don't know, other than I find the whole idea of living out a purposeful story versus a life of random, inconsequential events extremely alluring.  And, having just reflected on my own story for National Eating Disorder Awareness week, I am already familiar with the desire to have my life mean something, both in retrospect and for the future.  I want my life to mean something more -- I want to live a story that means something. 

And I think (or I hope?) that we all are.  There is the slow and sweeping story woven from the expanse of a full life, and there are the tiny, vibrant stories that occur in a day or a week or a handful of years.  I think.  I hope.  I believe.

"You get a feeling when you look back on life that that's all God really wants from us, to live inside a body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through the experience."

What do you think?  Do you see life as a series of random events or as a story being played out from your first breath to your last?

4 comments:

  1. i beleive life is a story when we open up to it.games i liked: city of heroes, black and white, the sims (make your own story!

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  2. Story. Life is definitely a story written by God. Whether or not we choose to follow His script is another matter, but I absolutely believe God writes our life-story.Word verification: rityr - Appropriate, isn't it? ;)

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  3. I love the Sims for games...mostly because I liked destroying the characters' lives. Morbid, eh?I DEFINITELY see life as a purposeful story. God has been in it, ever since my first breath. I don't believe in randomness.

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  4. I love Don Miller and I hadn't heard about that book...I'll have to check it out. I think that God cannot control everything in life he would never coordinate us to triumph after sufferage. I belive with all my heart and soul - I know that God works all things together for good. Where you are right now is a product of where you have been .... for example, you are inspiring people with your blog. If not for your journey, would you have dicovered hooping and the joy and exploration it has given you? Perhaps your relationships have grown ... I think we all have things in our lives that God is weaving together for good.

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"I am glad you are here with me."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King