Why does this matter, you ask?
I guess because over time, my reading preferences have aligned with my beliefs and convictions in a way that makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy the frivolity of a fictional story. Don't get me wrong, the characters in fiction, when written well, can appear just as deep, human, tortured as any real-life character. But something about knowing a story is true- that's what gets me. Captures me. Keeps me turning the page.
I just finished reading a witty memoir of sorts, written by Nora Ephron, which was a gift from my kids for Mother's Day. There are several things that struck me while reading it. First, I didn't realize (or maybe I pushed it out of my memory since I love her work so much) that she was an atheist. This makes me sad. I also didn't know she had been married three times. Also sad. Still, her writing, her charm, her self-deprecating humor is what has made her work (largely fictional) so endearing to me. I'd venture to say that her quick sarcasm and cynicism is also what has appealed to me.
And it got me thinking about how I relate to people. Oftentimes I am fairly selective and judgmental in choosing the people I want to get to know. I'm even more so when considering who I will allow to get to know me. And I think of Nora; A writer, director, you-name-it, putting it all out there for everyone to read, and I feel the weight of my small world, my tiny circle of existence shrinking in on me.
A life so short lived so protected is not much of a life.
Now Nora's life, that's not the life for me. I have no desire to rub elbows with the who's who of New York, or eat in fancy restaurant, or be able to retell the latest juicy gossip.
No.
What I want is to expand my world by being the hands and feet of Jesus.
Wait. Back up. I lied.
I do want to eat in fancy restaurants. Sometimes.
But I digress.
I want to meet my neighbors and invite them into my home without fear that they're casing the place. I want my kids to be able to talk to people passing by the backyard fence without my heart catching in my throat that the person is a racist, kidnapper or pedophile. I want to pray for and minister to a city who doesn't know or believe in God. I want to be brave.
And that is why I love nonfiction. The heroes are real. They have lived through adventures or tragedies, or both and then were brave enough to put it on paper and say, "Here. Here I am. In these pages. This is me."
I want to be like that when I grow up.
The reality is that it's not that the real-life characters didn't experience fear, rejection, hurt, pain. They embraced it. They understood that it's all a part of life, of the journey, to wherever it is we each think we're headed in this life and maybe the next. They got that their stories, though about them, were not about them. Their stories were sounds in a universe, a tapestry of lives lived and lives passed. They're merely contributors to the beauty of creation, the story of time.
So, how can I be that, too? How can my life, my story, be open and vulnerable and brave? How can I put myself out there and say, "Here. Here I am. This is me."
I don't quite know yet. Or better said, I'm working on it. I'm working on using less filters. I'm trying to grab ahold of the things I've convinced myself I don't like or I'm not good it. I'm trying to take another look with a fresh perspective and see if there's something here, in me, that I've squashed that is waiting to be exposed.
Spring is here.
New growth is on the horizon.
"For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."
(Isaiah 43:19)
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