The Stories We Tell

A week has passed since the election, and I am trying to view our country through the eyes of those who are happy about who won. I want to understand. There are metaphors that describe how to do this: seeing through another’s eyes, walking a mile in another’s shoes, feeling their pain, stepping into their world. It all boils down to intentionally getting into the heads and hearts of those who view the world from a different perspective.  

That is what I have been trying to do recently. I have been listening. Not listening with the intent to refute. Not formulating rebuttals in my mind while reading an opposing position. Not assuming I am right and they are wrong. Rather I am trying to put aside preconceptions and listen openly, in order to understand emotionally as well as intellectually.  

What I have heard is stories. Right now people are telling stories about why they won or why they lost. But most of the stories predate the election. Small stories are part of a larger story, called a narrative. People tell stories about themselves and others, their party and the other party, their country and other countries, their people and other people. They vet individual news stories and news sources based on whether they reinforce their preexisting narrative. "Facts” are judged by whether they conform to the meta-story. 

Both Democrats and Republicans have stories. Some stories are based on evidence and some are not. Some stories are more important and relevant than others. Some are fabricated, and some are accurate. Most of the stories seem to have victims and villains. People like us are the victims, and people unlike us are the villains.  

We are on the side of the angels against the evil forces seeking to destroy our country. We are the true patriots, and the other side are the traitors. They want to take away rights and freedoms, and we want to preserve them. We seldom pause to wonder if perhaps our stories are not as obviously true as we think they are. If they were, there would not be so many misguided and deluded people! 

Both sides hear only the stories and tell only the stories that illustrate their values. Both sides are deaf to the stories of the other side. They cannot view the world through the other's eyes or walk in the other’s shoes. This time around, the stories and narrative told by Republicans made more sense to more Americans than the stories told by Democrats.  

That is how we got to where we are. Storytelling. I am suggesting that the stories are a big part of the problem. Not that stories are bad. I love stories. I read at least one novel each week and often two. But stories oversimplify and distort truth. Stories never tell the whole story!  

Cultural stories arose as social mechanisms to reinforce tribal identity and loyalty. They evolved to help the tribe survive in a hostile environment. They have been part of human culture since the beginning of civilization.  Stories are at the core of every religion. The Bible is a book of stories. Jesus was a storyteller. 

The problem is that stories are fictions. At best they are incomplete truth. At worst, half-truths. They are partial truth. Edited truth. The whole truth is always more complex than what stories say. Stories can point to truth, but they can also obscure truth. Stories are especially dangerous when they are intentionally used to deceive.  

They are also misleading when people mistake the story for fact. Like Christians mistaking ancient creation myths for history. Stories are misleading when we focus on the story rather than what it is pointing to. Like the Zen teaching about the man who mistook the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself.  

Stories are mental techniques used to shape raw data into something that is usable. They are mental shorthand that distort reality so we can digest it. They are useful fictions invented by the human mind and perpetuated by human culture as a way to navigate a complex world by simplifying it. Stories do not describe the world; they create a world that does not exist in reality. 

For that reason, we need to be wary of the harm stories can do. For example, if our religion's stories include divinely sanctioned genocide, then we are more likely to commit genocide. That explains both sides of the Gaza war. It explains the American Indian Wars. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” leads to a lot of dead indigenous people. Likewise, if our religious and cultural stories glorify war, then we will likely send our children to fight and die in war. 

Perhaps an alternative approach is to experience people and situations without telling stories about them. Forget the shorthand and look at them without prejudice – as much as that is possible. See people without relying on a tale to tell us who they are and how we should feel about them. Without a filter, we may see the “other” as not so different than ourselves.  

We might see ordinary Democrats and Republicans as they really are apart from the stories we tell about them. Then we will be able to spot dangers to our country more clearly. We might even be able to love our neighbors as ourselves. Possibly we could even love our enemies, as the master storyteller of my faith tradition taught me. At least that is my story, and I am sticking to it! 

Waiting for Doomsday

It just so happens that during this historic election week I have been reading a new novel entitled “I Think We‘ve Been Here Before” by Suzy Krause. It is the story of some people in a Saskatchewan prairie town, who are awaiting an extinction level event. A cosmic blast of gamma rays is heading toward our solar system. In less than three months it will destroy all life on our planet.  The book is about how people deal differently with the impending apocalypse.  

The plot seems like an apt metaphor for the 2024 presidential election and waiting for Inauguration Day. I don’t think this Canadian author had the US political scene in mind when she wrote the book, but it certainly feels relevant to how a lot of Americans are feeling these days.  

For years, political and military leaders have been warning us about the dangers of a second Trump presidency. Apparently most Americans didn’t believe them, or they wanted this type of presidency. In either case the American people have decided to give 45 a second chance as 47. One banner in my daughter’s neighborhood read “Trump, the Sequel.”  

For many people the election results feel like a death sentence for American values. It is like receiving bad biopsy results. It feels like a close family member has been diagnosed with cancer and given less than three months to live. We are dreading what the next few years might mean for our country and our hard-won freedoms. 

In Krause’s novel the characters had different attitudes toward the approaching end of the world. Some were in denial. They thought it was government disinformation or a conspiracy theory. Others became depressed and withdrawn. Some acted out. Still others became very religious.

Two of the main characters got married. One man decided to use the time he had left to do as much good for others as he could. Families traveled far distances in order to be with those they love during the final days, which happened to coincide with Advent and Christmas. (Lots of symbolism there!)  

I have heard a lot of my family and friends voice different attitudes toward our upcoming American apocalypse. Many are still in a state of shock. They are exhibiting classic stages of grief. Some are determined to keep fighting for human rights and freedoms.  Others are going about business as usual, as if this were just another election. As a preacher I habitually look for biblical parallels in current events.  

I remember the pattern in the historical books of the Hebrew scriptures. God’s people repeatedly chose a human leader over God. Israel preferred to follow a king rather than the Lord. “And the Lord said to the prophet Samuel, ‘Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.’” I see a large segment of the American church repeating this sin in our time.  

Another powerful biblical parallel is the Babylonian exile. That was a catastrophic event in the history of the people of Israel – the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple, and the exile of its people to a foreign land. Somehow the Jewish people and faith survived. Exilic prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Deutero-Isaiah have insights to help those who feel like strangers in a strange land after this election.  

The First Letter of Peter uses this exilic theme saying that Christians are “resident aliens living in exile.” The Letter to the Hebrews says of biblical people of faith, “they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” 

Following in the footsteps of the prophets, Jesus predicted an apocalypse happening in his country within the lifetimes of his hearers. He prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple a second time, this time by the Romans. His words came to pass in 70 AD. Early Christianity was formed in the shadow of this apocalypse.  

So we should not be surprised that such an apocalyptic event is happening in our time and in our nation. It is the way of history, and history tends to repeat itself. Or at least it rhymes, as Mark Twain famously quipped. As the title of the novel says, “I Think We‘ve Been Here Before.” 

So I am not surprised or shocked by what is happening in our country. I joke that it proves the Calvinist doctrine of the “total depravity” of humans. G.K. Chesterton once said that the doctrine of original sin is the only Christian doctrine that can be empirically proven. This election has confirmed that assessment.  

If evangelicals voted in this election according to the same pattern that they voted in the previous two elections, then they have once again demonstrated that Christians are just as morally and spiritually lost as the non-Christian populace. As if the sex abuse and financial scandals of the Church had not already made that abundantly obvious to Americans! 

So I wait for doomsday, but I am not distressed. This is the way of the world. Every nation has moments of crisis. Every generation has its trials and tribulations. Every generation of Christians has its “Bonhoeffer moments” where faithful believers are required to stand up to tyrants and an apostate church. This is our moment. It will undoubtedly be hard. But did we really think that the Kingdom of God comes without a price? 

Unlike other Christians, I do not feel like a stranger and exile on the earth or in my own country. I am not seeking a homeland. I am already home. I am at home in the Kingdom of God. As the apostle said in the city that gave birth to democracy. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” I abide in Christ and Christ in me. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  

Doomsdays happen. They always have. They always will. That is what Jesus said in his Olivet Discourse, also known as his “little apocalypse,” concerning the doomsday looming over his generation. He said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.”  

Max Ehrmann said in his Desiderata, “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.” We’ve been here before. We will get through this.