When we tell and retell a story it takes shape and the flat narrative is rounded into a story imbued with mythic and symbolic meaning.
The basic storyline of our trip from South Africa to Mozambique was one plane trip and a drive in a Land Rover. But as we recounted the story to friends in conversation and through email, a series of unfortunate events became a quest fraught with mishaps and peril and ending in bliss.
Here’s Hilary’s recounting of the story:
Dear friends and family,
THANK YOU for praying about our travel day. We had a traffic jam in Pretoria, a Visa machine that had been struck by lightning at the Johannesburg airport, and a power out at the border in Malawi. We made all the kids carry heavy books in their backpacks all day so our luggage wouldn’t be quite so overweight.In spite of these possible snafus, the day came off beautifully. We made it to the Mozambique border just in time. In fact we were the last ones through, and the truckers behind us had to wait til morning. We arrived at our home in Vila Ulongue at 7:45pm with all our luggage and both of David’s hearing aids fully functioning and properly programmed. Thanks be to God!
When we arrived, the power was out, our water was off, and the phones were not working. TIA, as they say, "This Is Africa." But our neighbors had a lovely hot dinner prepared for us, and our house was clean and ready. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, there were roses blooming just outside my bedroom window. This, too, is Africa.
After she had sent this to our mailing list, the story changed again. We arrived in Vila Ulongue without any food. Normally we stock up on meat and cheese and other essentials of an American diet at the Shoprite in Lilongwe. But when we got there it was closed because of a power outage. So, we drove straight to the border and were the last ones to get across. The story changes in two ways here. First, we only made it across the border because the store was closed because the power was out. Second, there’s a road never taken in which we arrive at the border loaded with food but have to spend the night in Malawi because the Mozambique border is already closed. Who knows how the story would have turned out?
Another way that stories are “meant” or imbued with meaning through retelling is in the creation of “punch-lines” or meaning-packed one-liners. Hilary used one in her story when she took the cynical TIA and reappropriated it with her final line, “This, too, is Africa.”
I had another of these lines in a short email I sent to our family on the night we arrived:
There’s no water and no electricity and no place we’d rather be.”
I see these stories everywhere. They give meaning and order to our lives that otherwise might read, “Born and died.” And metaphysically it is these stories are continuously in conflict with opposing narratives. Creationism and Darwinism are too such narratives that give meaning to a person’s view of the world and don’t really allow for a neutral response to the other story.
A recent example was in the retelling of the Iraq war on this blog. The subsequent clash between stories was quite extreme and shows the power of stories to lead our hearts and determine our destiny.
But there are examples far more ancient. The book of Job recasts the history of Israel in a mythic light of a man perfected through suffering. Dante’s Inferno, Milton’s Paradise and even LaHaye and Jenkin’s Apocalyptic Epics all try to see behind the news and the daily blues to a cosmic significance that redeems our lives from despair.
There is something I fear in the Twittering Facebook of our day. Microblogging and lifestreaming do not allow for the structuring of a coherent narrative. Following the lives of fifty different people in the mundanities of their existence is more like panning for gold than visiting a jeweler. We’re sifting, sifting, sifting all the time in search of something that shines. But far better I think would be to visit those artists who have already taken the raw materials and fashioned them into things of beauty.
Boy, I cannot believe noone commented on this! (And I’ve waited a couple of days now to read some interesting comments.)
This topic really is hot. All the implications, e.g. for the ‘inerrancy of Scripture’ (in whatever definition you prefer of it), or for human memory (”Reminiscences are not recalls of past events but their re-creation”), or for cross-cultural narrative studies (okay, that’s one of *my* hobby horses, so no offense if nobody else jumps on it).
I’ve loved this post from the first time I read it. Thanks, David!!!
Okay – more on this offline (otherwise, I might get accused of writing an entire post of its own in your comment section). Hope to get to it rather sooner than later
Like opposite of online? …
Btw, I’ll be offline for the rest of today.
Oliver, thanks for sharing your ideas. My fingers hover over the keyboard here not wanting to give a false impression but I think what we’re talking about is a recognition of even historical narratives as being artfully constructed for didactic purposes. Martin Luther’s theses nailed to the door. Joan of Arc’s life and death. The impoverished upbringing of Abraham Lincoln. The embellishment of these loved stories does not detract from their basis in historical events and persons but they become saturated with meaning and symbolism.
Yes, David, I can fully understand the hovering of your fingers over the keyboard. Is this a slippery slope? How far do we go? King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? Robin Hood?
Having grown up in a Lutheran church in Germany, I regard Luther’s theses nailed to the main door of the Wittenberg cathedral almost like a meme in my early spiritual development. Is there an actual historical event behind that particular story, though? Last I heard was that he never nailed anything to that door. Rather, he posted them to the influencial theologians throughout the German Empire. Most passers-by of that door wouldn’t have been able to read his theses anyway … Sorry!
Of course, Luther still published those theses and through them became the cause of another rift in the church (liberating to some, deplorable to others – but that’s a different story). And by being able or at least attempting to distinguish fact from truth, underlying value from myth, wishful thinking from propaganda, my faith has emerged the stronger for it (or so I hope).
Yours demythologizing,
Oliver
It’s nice that someone recognizes my genius. I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on the subject.
Offline? What’s that?
Okay – after some strong encouragement from David to share some of my thoughts here, here are a couple of my musings. I should remark beforehand that one of my explicit goals in life is to integrate all kinds of superficially maybe incongruous views and behaviours into my own experience (my way of integrationism, cf. Roy Harris).
My interest in stories stems from my own involvement with a minority language project in Tanzania (1996-2006), viz the Rangi. Among other things, I’m now conducting postgraduate research at Edinburgh University on the topic of developing a vernacular writing style in the Rangi language of Tanzania. While predominantly dealing with the stylistic, with discourse analysis and literacy studies, I couldn’t help but contemplate the question of how vernacular writers, be they incipient MTTs or accomplished and published authors, come to mean in their particular cultural grid. What happens to their previously orally dominated perception when stories pass from the aural to the visual? (The poetical corner of my mind tries to insert here “… from the audit to the visionary?”) Incidentally, James McGrath (we studied together in the early/mid 90s) is spending his current sabbatical on orality …
As I’m struggling to give the Bible its appropriate place in my life (balancing between bibliolatry and historical-critical methodology), I’ve come to make an imho important distinction. That is, I try to distinguish between fact (historical, scientific, …) and truth. Was there a couple named Adam and Eve (despite these names being indicators of the mythic and symbolic nature of this story) who became “sinful” (whatever semantic and theological components this term contains) by eating a fruit? Did the prophet Jonah (mentioned as a historical figure in 2 Kings 14:25) also literally go to Niniveh after a detour in a whale’s belly? Does it necessarily have to detract from my faith if there was no *bodily* resurrection (as long as there is one at all, in whatever sense – cf. 1 Cor.15:3-22)? The list of narratives where I consider a separation of truth and fact helpful is close to endless.
Interestingly enough, this distinction is one which I’ve recently also encountered in evolutionary linguistics (Edinburgh University has a by now famous programme in EL). I couldn’t find that article again which I had read on fiction / narrative being an adaptive trait in human evolution. However, a quick google search led me to:
http://www.yorku.ca/mar/Oatley%20&%20Mar%202005_evolution%20pre-adaptation%20character%20in%20fiction_uncorrected%20proof.pdf
which is just as good for present purposes (it should suffice if you read the section “A derivation of stories from human sociality”; thereafter, it focuses on narrative character).
[An alternative good read might be http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secrets-of-storytelling; including a number of noteworthy comments.]
As a Tolkien-maniac, I’m deeply convinced that his writings contain a great many truths (even though none of it is historically factual unless you want to invoke parallel universa which may be an approach of getting round that conundrum of God’s foreknowledge versus human free will). In that sense it might be meant as a compliment if I suggested now a possible subtitle for the Bible being “inspired by a true story”. The narrative has become larger than the real life – Jesus definitely knew that, or he wouldn’t have talked in parables.
Just as you did in your superb post, I’ve observed myself embellishing real-life stories, personal experiences which, in the re-telling, grew larger than life, became inspired, took a life of their own and touched others in a way which my mundane “other” reality never could have. We’re made “in the image of God” and thereby become co-creators in the narrative. And in case you wonder: I still consider Him the Master-Narrator.
Well, if I go on much longer, I’m afraid this will only deteriorate into rambling (if it hasn’t already – you be the judge!), so I better stop here.
Greetings from Nairobi,
Oliver