For my birthday a couple of months ago nearly, my roommate got me “The Complete Works of Flannery O’Connor.” He told me he really liked her material and thought I would to. Now there have been some stories I’ve got lost on and I have no idea what really happened, but there are others I’m finding later on that I’m being completely drawn into. There’s something I do notice about her work though.
Her stories don’t really seem to conclude. You get to the end and you realize something has happened, but you don’t know where the characters are going to go from there. In some earlier stories, some characters move on to another story. Maybe that happens in some later stories. I haven’t read all of them yet.
As I read that, I realize that that’s the way our stories are. I’m not sure if I’m the only one who does this, but being in this mindset of reading stories now, I can picture myself in a story and wonder what it would be like for someone else to describe my story from their perspective. What would they say if they could see how my mind was interpreting things? Sometimes I hear the words in my own mind as I describe what I am seeing and thinking and my reaction to it.
I have a friend on here who would be surprised that I’m thinking of him in this as I know he wrestles with a lot of questions. I hope he can identify himself from that. I saw him put some pictures of himself up on Facebook and they were the first ones I’d seen and when I saw them I thought “This is someone going out and living his own adventures.”
Isn’t that what we’re all doing though? We’re all involved in an adventure. I was recently out with my roommate and a mutual friend of ours and we were talking about apologetics and what it’s like being an apologist. Our friend spoke of it in a way I’ve seen it. I go about my job now and my knowledge is not something that’s visible, but I just realize that at any moment, I might have to deal with some objection and then enter into a sort of “battle mode” and debunk an argument.
That doesn’t mean that you see the opponent and think “Must destroy.” No. It can be done subtly and for me, I prefer to debate that way. It’s more of a Socratic technique. I like asking questions so that my opponent can realize what they are doing. Now sometimes, that’s not the best format. When we had the Mormons up here though, it was the one we used. When dealing with matters of fact though, I still had to give straight answers and did so for questions like “Why do you think the text of the Bible is reliable?”
Each day I wake up in apologetics, I see it as that adventure. (Or rather, I try to.) I think that there is something new I can learn today. I can dive deeper into my faith today. My adventure is going on. There are arguments to answer and Christians who are doubting to rescue and adversaries to be dealth with. Friends might come needing support and I best be able to help them out.
I also know that God is in charge of my story. In fact, he’s in charge of yours, and I find it amazing that so many stories are coming together in such a beautiful way and will do so. I think of my roommate and how across space and time, our paths converged and our stories came together and while we’re each playing out our own story, in some ways, we are playing out a dual story now where our accounts come together.
Are there some minor stories concluded as it were? Yes. However, before me is the grand sheet of what the master author is writing and like any good author, I trust he is going to work out all things for the heroes in his story for good.
I look forward to the next entry of my story.
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