A Narrated Life

Abby, who just turned eight, has, for some time already, narrated her play. 

It's whimsical and sweet and amusing to listen to the 'story' she creates for herself, and for anyone willing to go along, as she presses into no end of a variety of imagined worlds with increasingly complicated and sometimes daring plots.   There's a fair degree of improv employed, as she adapts the play-story to whomever and whatever also happens to be involved.

This weekend we had all three grandkids for a sleepover, so for most of the day she had both her little brother Zachary and her slightly younger cousin Harvest written into the scene.  Mostly, they played along, but sometimes they had their own ideas.  No worries.  Abby just rewrote the narrative.

"Let's go!", she cried excitedly, leaping up from the garden swing.  The other two ponies followed her eagerly.  Only Harvest acts on cue.  Zachary has other ideas, which he voices assertively.  Something about not being a pony any more, but magically turning into a ninja. He demonstrates this by taking a ninja-like stance in front of the newly stacked wood in our backyard.  Nonplussed, Abby adapts. The other pony followed her eagerly while the ninja went to look after the monsters in the woodpile.

If you listen long enough, you hear so many details you'd miss without the narration.  Relational cues.  Emotional nuances.  Insights into motives and goals, and a connection to the broader scope of where this story might be going.

Reminds me of something else, another narration, facilitated through the practice of journaling.

I think I've been journaling in one form or another since I was 11 years old.  Since that time, writing down on paper my observations of the day has evolved from a five line, preadolescent diary entry about cute boys at school, to a rich experience of my beautiful-beyond-description Divine Lover in heaven.  It is hard for me to distinguish journaling from prayer.

Recently I've been realizing just how much God is in my journaling.  Not that I am writing directly to Him all the time, although I do indeed write out prayers often enough.  But it’s more of a sense of His presence with me on the pages as I sort myself out.  It’s like He’s right in here with me; a mystic union of words and feelings and ideas that He is eager to be part of with me.  This is more of a living thing for me.  An exchange of sorts.  Something that give me access to the deeper places of my being, with God, right here on the pages, with me.

In a very tangible way, God and I narrate my life together.

I know journaling isn't for everyone, but for me, I feel that this 'narration' helps me catch so many details I'd miss otherwise.  Relational cues.  Emotional nuances.  Insights into motives and goals, and a connection to the broader scope of where the story of my life might be going.

And like Abby, I want to be ready for the improv.  Not everything goes the way I imagine it will.  Actually, most of it doesn't.  So I adapt with God, and the words on the page keep me grounded and focused, open to the new adventures of a story unfolding.