WRAPPED IN NARRATIVES, CARRIED BY STORIES

   Understand that, as a writer for over 50 years, narratives and stories are central to my being. They live in my bones, my heart, my mind and my soul. That is probably one reason--among many--why I love the stories and parables in the 4 Gospels so much. They just speak to me. Sometimes making my hair stand on end ("The Prodigal Son," where the second son, after getting his inheritance, goes out into "the great emptiness," as Bishop Barron translates the Greek.) ;

 

 sometimes making me cry (the woman with an issue of blood for 12 years who had spent all her money on doctors and yet had not been cured, and blind Bartimaeus, who pleaded with Jesus to heal him); 

and occasionally puzzling me and leaving me wondering what was meant by this particular story (where Jesus tells the woman he will not expel the demon from her daughter as his power goes to the Israelites only. But he changes his mind!).

  I have spent my entire adult life telling stories, listening to them, reading them, and still I feel there is so much to learn. When on the speaking circuit at both schools and conferences, I spoke about the scientific evidence for what happens when we read a story to a child, especially with an arm around them. Their heartbeat drops. Their blood pressure goes down and breathing slows. All this is evidence of the power of stories to calm our souls and bodies.

 

  I see stories--those read and those listened to--like a colorful, bright shawl wrapped around my shoulders, snug against my beating heart. Their wisdom, the intake of breath when you reach the end of a sentence, the lilt of words all contain me in a way nothing else does except a hug from one of my honeys. Poetry will do this. It will carry us from one place to another, leaving us in a landscape we had not known. Think of Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming," with "slouching towards Bethlehem" in it; those fierce words shake me up and set me down in a new place.

  Or Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, "God's Grandeur," where his grandeur will "...flame out like shining from shook foil." This makes me see the world anew, gleaming with wonder, shining in holiness, even when on some level I do not really understand the words.

   When I am writing a book, a poem or a blog, the same holds true for me. Words will come out of nowhere which I had not even imagined, had not thought of, but there they were; a beginning to a new short story, telling something I had not known. Such was the first line to a new short story, "Mary Meets the Angel" which came to me yesterday while resting under my Reiki shawl: He startled her. At least she thought it was a "he."  Then the narrative continues with Mary thinking this creature must be mad. She decides to get food from her mother, Anne, to put at this creature's feet, hoping he would leave, taking his strange and frightening words with him.

   Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

 

  And I'm off, just as if I were in a skiff, pushing against shore and moving out into deep water with only one paddle, one KitKat bar, and a small flask of water. It still astonishes me. It is a damn wonder. A miracle, uno milagro! I am blessed--as Mary was so long ago--to be the carrier of words, to start a story where I do not see the end, but to trust in this mysterious journey.

Think of Thomas Merton's famous prayer; "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me." But he trusts, knowing the end of the journey is in God's hands and not in his.

 We are never sure. Not when reading, not when writing, not when living. This is so damn hard to get used to. Or, as my beloved Anne Lamott once said, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty."

 

 So, step into the boat; push off; write a few words, breathe, write a few more; and if not writing, take up a real book in your hand, push your nose into the pages and smell that homey paper smell; lean back in your chair and watch your soul take fire.