Characters

C. S. Lewis once compared God creating you and me to an author creating a character for a novel. Having created characters for a novel, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the comparison.

Characters must be distinct. To create characters that are alike makes it difficult to remember who is who. Character has to have a purpose, a reason for being in the story. Characters must move the story forward, and, lastly, characters must be real. By that, I mean they must be three-dimensional. The way that happens is by giving them irregularities, flaws that make them human. Characters need a “limp,” someone once said, through which they walk through life.

When I apply these truths about creating characters to God creating you and me, I see some important things to keep in mind:

·      We are called to be distinct. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said we needed to be salt . . . to have taste. We were not created to be like others, even though much of the time we strive to look, sound, and be like others. In the end, it becomes difficult to see who’s who. Better to uncover what makes us unique and live lives out of that uniqueness.

·      Each of us has a purpose, a reason we’re in the story. It might not necessarily be grand and glorious purpose, though it might be, but each of us has work to do that is uniquely ours to do.

·      We are here to move the story forward. It might not be the purpose we wanted or envisioned, but the story depends on us. As people of faith, we believe life has a plot and everything we do needs to serve the plot.

·      Finally, like a character in a story, we need to be real. We need to be three-dimensional. That means not hiding our flaws or quirks but living a life with and through them. In other words, we need to accept our “limps” and walk through life anyway. So many people deny the things that make them real; they hide them and hope no one will notice. The magic of life, the magic of authentic living, however, is embracing all of who we are and bringing it all to whatever we do, to whatever conversation we have, to whatever relationship we’ve been given.

Can you imagine such a world - a world full of real, wonderful, quirky characters serving a plot we didn’t write? It’s beyond exciting. It’s enough to get me out of bed and be the character I was created to be.

Want to come along?

Going Back

It was a trip to the past. Despite what I’ve learned about living in the present, I knew there were reasons to return and see if dragons were still there.

Thirty years ago, I was asked to be a chaplain at a famous, old school in England. (Let’s just say, they were teaching classes when Columbus discovered the new world and celebrating their 100th anniversary during the tumultuous years of the Protestant reformation.) Being the first American chaplain was something special, they told me, and my ego was released from its cage by the keys of a life-long need to prove myself.  The air in my puffed-up chest soon caused me to choke and I tripped over the very academic robes I sought. It was not the first, nor the last, time I played a role and strayed from whatever authentic self I knew. Returning to the campus after all these years felt like a spiritual confrontation.

A few years ago, I was taught a unique form of self-love, one more valuable than a day at a spa or a spontaneous day off from work. I was taught to sit beside a younger version of myself, one of which was the British school master - the one with a young family and promising career and no clue how to care for either. At first, I tried to say something to the earlier me, something I’ve learned since then, but eventually sat back and listened. I understood what he was saying like no one else could, and, in the end, it was like meeting a friend again for the first time.

Such “time travel” is challenging and unsettling, and yet it can also be enormously healing. Whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, we carry every chapter of our lives with us, every version of ourselves. Sometimes we stuff the difficult ones in a closet and deny they exist. Other times, we dress them up and pretend they were something they were not. Such chapters aren’t going anywhere, and the sooner we sit and listen to them the healthier we will be.

Yes, living in the present is a significant spiritual discipline, but so is looking back. As someone wise once said, “The past can be in the car, it just can’t drive.” Going back, looking at a familiar landscape with a new pair of glasses, and maybe even sitting beside the person you used to be, can unlock closets, remove costumes, and provide a sense of compassion – self-compassion – that is nothing short of a spiritual awakening.

Missing the message

I was sitting at a graduation ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance, but the students across the aisle looking at their cellphones distracted me. The speaker was talking about the difference between doing and being, but her message was lost on those checking a recent score, texting with a friend, or playing a game.

How could they, I wondered, only to realized how often I’m guilty of the same thing. No, I’m not one who’s addicted to my phone, but that doesn’t mean I’m attentive to what life’s saying to me. Sometimes I’m focused on crossing something off my to-do list; other times it’s my calendar with little room to breathe that gets my attention. The worst is when I feel I know all I need to know and look away from the meaningful moments surrounding me.

Just as I felt bad for the commencement speaker, I also feel bad for God when we don’t pay attention. I believe God speaks often, but we don’t always have ears to hear. God’s artistry surrounds us, but we rarely have eyes to see. And I think God’s presence is always within reach, but we rarely make the effort to feel it. Like the graduates, we look down and not up. We focus on the trivial and ignore the profound.

I guess I should be grateful to the students, not annoyed. They illustrated something of which I’m often guilty. They may not have learned anything at their graduation, but I did. The speaker was good, too.