. . . continued from previous post

Frederick Buechner encourages us to listen to our lives. Master storyteller, he knows the narrative quality of life, that we are not merely storytellers but storied-beings. So it behooves us (how often do I get to use the word behooves?) – it behooves us to be mindful of the story we are telling and hope to tell with our lives lest we get to the end of it and discover we have written a horror story or a bad comedy or, worse yet, someone else’s autobiography instead of our own. Whether we are conscious of it or not—we are telling our story. Gandhi once said, “My life is my message.”

As persons of faith we carry this one step further. The story we are telling with our lives is part of a larger, ultimate, universal story. It is also the story of the Divine in whom we live and move and have our being. It is also part of the story of the universe itself by whose generosity, in addition to Divine gratuity, we are sustained. It is the story of relationships as well. The invitation is consciously to co-author our lives with God, depicted in the first creation account in Genesis as the original, creative author who spoke the world into being through the creative energy of the word (dabhar). This is what healthy author-ity looks like in one’s life. Merton says that our vocation is “to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny” (NSC, 32)

Each person’s story is sacred. Each person’s story is more than the sum total of all his or her stories. Each person’s story is meant to interweave with the sacred plot and secret mystery of the planet dreamed up and written in the heart of the original ghostwriter. For persons of faith our autobiographies are biographies of God. Meister Eckhart said, “Every creature is a word of God and a book about God.” So—as we used to say in the ’60’s—WRITE ON!

REFLECTION:

What is the story you hope to tell with your life?