Story Trumps Everything

One thing I've recently become aware of is how story trumps everything. Story trumps success. Story trumps suffering. Story trumps comfort. Story trumps desired outcome. Story trumps loss.

What do I mean by this?

99% of us suffer and experience a tremendous amount of loss during our lifetimes. There aren't that many people who live with an easy spouse, wonderful children, experience very few losses, and then die peacefully in their sleep. Most of us experience health problems, lack of financial resources, children who go astray, untimely deaths in the family, loss of freedom,  the betrayal of a family member or friend, and die a somewhat drawn out and uncomfortable death.

Inside of these stories, however, lie the potential for love, compassion, and heroicism. Those who suffer well (since almost all suffer) ask God to help them find these themes in the middle of sorrow and pain. The good sufferer also chooses to enter community with his or her suffering instead of choosing to isolate out of shame and self pity. Love, compassion, and heroicism can only be experienced in community.

The courageous story of the sufferer is when they risk bringing their suffering into community. The courageous story of the community is when those in it risk loving the sufferer. These are the sorts of stories that trump all suffering and even all success. The good sufferer stays in the mix of never running from how much they hurt and never running away from the community which can meet them in their suffering. These sorts of stories bring some of the deepest feelings of intimacy and deepest connections with God that will ever exist. Our ship may have gone down and been senseless and untimely, but when it went down, there was a story and that story is the one that God and the heavens, and our future selves will know of and be told of.

Whether or not we succeed or fail, whether we live or die, and whether or not we experience justice or injustice is always penultimate. The ultimate or highest point is whether or not we live out the deeper story and the deeper themes of love, compassion, and heroicism.

The good sufferer honestly loathes suffering and embraces the power and beauty of the story all at the same time.  The good sufferer does it well and does it poorly and it is never done correctly.  They simply choose to enter instead of running away or harming self or others.  The good sufferer goes through grief and the story becomes powerful.  This story is what is told to the angels.  It is courageous and they know it.  The sufferer knows it and it evokes deep feelings of intimacy and connectedness with God and others.