The Whole Story

So I really love history. (That's why I'm spending three months in Europe).

It probably has something to do with how I learned history which was largely through stories (historical fiction, biopics, documentaries etc) rather than timelines and memorized lists of who held power when.

In a word, Rome is a lot for me to take in.

Leading up to this extended pilgrimage/DIY Sabbatical, I was remembering from my only previous experience of Europe, the feeling of Rome; the way all the centuries are just casually jumbled together and forced into a confusing unity.

Maybe it was only a coping mechanism, but it occured to me that approaching this time as I was, as a time to be particularly in the presence of God, that I was approaching this continent of impossibly overwhelming sedimentary history in the company of the Author.

"The Great Storyteller" is one of my default names for the Father and ways of understanding His work in my life. And He is the Storyteller not just of my life but of every last one of the lives that so haunts and moves me at the slightest contact with the memory that remains. With this perspective, the dizzying weight of centuries remained a vast wilderness, but my perspective shifted from the lost (if very interested) child to an adventurer in the company of the most competent guide.

This has not only helped to regulate the frenzy of my excitement to a more stable awe and gratitude, it has also transposed well into the more retreat-like aspects of my time here.

I've been reading through my old journals, praying through what in my story still needs forgiveness and healing, and in general finding that my story is more present in its totality here than in the normal course of my life.

Perhaps the surest marker of healing coming to full stature in a person is their ability to accept and even embrace the whole of their life, even the dark, painful, messy parts. My favorite articulation of how this is possible is that it is "because it is a story of light winning".

This time is for me a beautiful opportunity for me to encounter "the whole story"; my whole story, but also the whole story of God's work in human history. The more I wrestle through the memory of my own dark chapters and see how crucial they were to my becoming, the more I can have hope that the dark chapters of our human story can also be redeemed.

And in both stories, taking the time to stop and look back at what has already come has been also a full-out barrage of beauty. (More on that to come)

(Photo cred to my dad)