"not swallowed in the sea"

I've been thinking about stories a lot lately. Probably because I have been very irritated with the way that mine is being written. That thought usually leads to me being irritated with being irritated. Why can't i be one of those hearts that stands with arms open wide saying, "come on world."

I think we tend to plan our stories word for word and fight to live a life of connect the dots. I'd like to talk to the few people who die having followed the specific course they mapped out for themselves and ask them if it was worth it, or as satisfying as they anticipated. Then i'd like to talk to authors that make my soul feel at home. I would ask if they map out their writing word for word before ink ever touches paper... or if they let their writing be a process. I'd ask them how alive the writing process makes them feel.

I'm not trying to say humans don't have control over how life turns out. We most definitely engage the world around us, we engage our stories, we engage with God- our loving father who sees us better than anyone else... our God who created, understands, and delights in our delicacies, passions, and dreams. It's as if God is the page we write upon. [Side note: I have a love/hate relationship with analogies. They can be a wonderful way of expression, but are very easily misunderstood. Every analogy breaks down somewhere. Boo. And yet I can't give them up.]

Lately I've been craving the book of Exodus. I wake up some days and think, "Lord... give me my exodus." My guess is that every sane and integrated human being will at least at one time in their life long for their exodus... for God to tell them, "I will fight for you; you need only to be still." There's something comforting about the story of Israel- there's something relatable about them. I question God's love and sovereignty over their enslavement.... and my own captivity. The only thing I have come up with is the fact that God continually reminds them of their story- not to shame them, not to glorify them, but to remind them of who He is.

I'm working with recovering male addicts at an inpatient facility doing individual and group therapy. I am fascinated by their stories, yet I have encountered a problem: so many of them cope with the pain of their story by forgetting it. One man even told me, "I've shut the old me back off in a cave. He will never get out." I get where he is coming from- at some point we have to tell our old selves to get with the program. But I wonder if there is something to be said about seeking redemption in the pain of our stories rather than shutting it off... because shutting it off is really shutting off a piece of our soul.

Tonight I was driving home and a Coldplay song popped up on my iPod. I don't presume to know the actual intended meaning, I can only say what I felt. The theme phrase is, "you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea." This is someone telling another someone, "You have a story, I want to know it, I want to merge with it, it's too important to be blurred out and lost amidst a sea of lost stories." Ahhh. A rare experience: lyricist and genius in one.

What I'm contemplating is this: stories are written in process and require imperfection, layering, reflection, adaptation, contrast. We must engage them, we must remember them, we must refer to them.