Editing

At church on Sunday, our pastor gave a sermon that spoke to me. He pointed out that finding and telling a story are difficult work. He pointed out that sometimes you can't find the story because there's too much material and you are too attached to the good beautiful stuff to determine what belongs to the story and what doesn't. Your story gets thicker and thicker but never actually takes on or conveys any meaning. This principle works with our lives too.

If the meaning and purpose of life elude us now, it's because we have refused to make choices about what activities and what people are most important to us, and which ones are less important. He said that every one of us are living a story. And every one of us will have a better story if we recognize that the story will benefit from editing.

He went on to suggest that that should be the function of the church, that if you stick close to Jesus then he will help you find your story. I would also argue that it should also be the goal of a good parent. So often parents are bad editors, prefering to try to mold the child to fit their story instead of helping him to find his own. And I know, from experience, just how much of an impact that can have on a child.

He points out that in the Bible there is a connection between letting Jesus be a good editor and the commandment to love one another. He speculates that part of the work of loving one another is being willing to become good editors for each other's lives.

"Even as members of the same body, God has given none of us either the responsibility or the right to tell someone else what story they ought to be making with their lives. But God does give each of us a story to discover, and we can help each other discover that story if we can be, as Williams advises, disinterested in ourselves and attentive to the heart of the neighbor. If we can be, in other words, good editors rather than bad editors. "

I think that in order to be truly successful, we need to first of all recognize that our lives would benefit from editing. We need to make those choices about what and who is most important to us and discard those good but irrelevant things in our lives. And if we can find someone else (or even God) who we can trust to help us do that, it would be an ideal situation.