I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:18-20)
God loves you; you matter to him. That is a fact, stated as a proposition. I imagine most of you have heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? It hasn’t reached our hearts. Facts stay lodged in the mind, for the most part. They don’t speak at the level we need to hear. Proposition speaks to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the heart. We’ve been telling each other stories since the beginning of time. It’s our way of communicating the timeless truths, passing them down. (John Eldridge, Waking the Dead, p. 24)
I’m not sure. The Eldridge quote may be what led me to start writing Earth Fire. If it was not this passage, it was something someone said that was like this. My initial thought was to write essays that shared truths, but I knew some of the truths I wanted to share wouldn’t get very far stated as propositions or facts. I’ve been in too many debates to believe that sharing bold facts produces the results I wanted. Stories have influence.
At the same time, I’ve read stories in which the author breaks the fourth wall in the other direction. He/she steps onto the stage in the middle of the action, like Peter Falk’s character in Princess Bride, to tell us something about the story. Because Falk’s character is part of the story, it’s amusing, but when an author breaks in to tell you, “Now here is what I want you to understand from this scene,” it’s a sign of the writer’s insecurity. The author doesn’t trust that the story can teach the lesson by itself, or he doesn’t trust that the reader will get the point.
We all do this. We think, “Oh, it’s a teachable moment” and instead of encouraging the student to learn, we step in to make sure that they don’t miss the lesson. We think we have a good reason for this because so often we do seem to miss the lesson. Even C.S. Lewis dropped a few “in case you missed it” hints.
Jesus’ answer to “in case you missed it” was to tell another story. Only when His disciples cornered him and said, “Huh?” did He explain. But we remember His stories.
At the same time, I’ve read stories in which the author breaks the fourth wall in the other direction. He/she steps onto the stage in the middle of the action, like Peter Falk’s character in Princess Bride, to tell us something about the story. Because Falk’s character is part of the story, it’s amusing, but when an author breaks in to tell you, “Now here is what I want you to understand from this scene,” it’s a sign of the writer’s insecurity. The author doesn’t trust that the story can teach the lesson by itself, or he doesn’t trust that the reader will get the point.
We all do this. We think, “Oh, it’s a teachable moment” and instead of encouraging the student to learn, we step in to make sure that they don’t miss the lesson. We think we have a good reason for this because so often we do seem to miss the lesson. Even C.S. Lewis dropped a few “in case you missed it” hints.
Jesus’ answer to “in case you missed it” was to tell another story. Only when His disciples cornered him and said, “Huh?” did He explain. But we remember His stories.
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