"There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." Ursula K. Le Guin
Last Sunday as usual I was hurrying to check on everyone and make sure all of the hungry mouths had a morning meal so I could get ready for church. At the sheep field before I could start the head count, I noticed a set of twin lambs born two days prior running around frantic without their mother. And she had proved a good, attentive mother.
All sheep were accounted for except the mother ewe. That was strange. Even if a coyote managed to get through the fencing, the sly predator would have never made it past the watchful eyes of two Great Pyrenees, and still a coyote wouldn't have attacked a big sheep with such easy prey as vulnerable babies in the field. It didn't make sense.
I scooped up the lambs as I proceeded to walk around basically in circles, wondering where in the world the mom could be. Then all of a sudden I heard a faint, muffled baa. "Oh Jesus, help us!" The voice came from under a heavy round bale of hay that had fallen over on its side. I couldn't even see any part of the mom at all; she was completely hidden. I shifted the lambs to one arm and grabbed my phone to call the Farmer.
"Come now with the tractor a bale fell on a sheep; hurry!"
When the Farmer arrived and lifted the bale with the hay spear, I handed him the lambs inside of the cab so I could help their mom. She was lying on her side, and I expected her to be as flat as a pancake.
Amazingly she seemed okay. Sheep aren't known for being the brightest beast in the animal kingdom, but if a hay bale is tipping over, they usually have enough sense to get out of the way. I immediately saw her problem.
She must have been eating deep inside of the hay because a piece of hemp bailing twine was wrapped around her ear tag so when she went to move, she couldn't. Poor thing. I untangled her and slid her out into the field. Her front leg was hurt, but the Farmer assured me it wasn't broken that she just needed to get the circulation going in it again. He was right.
Sheep get unbelievably stressed at the least little thing, so I knew this scary ordeal had to have traumatized her to the core. I gave her a bucket of water, a pan of grain, her lambs, and some space. The Farmer and I stood there for a bit in the chilly air watching her from a distance, mesmerized, thanking God. It was one of those moments you cherish because you know it doesn't always go that way.
Then we went to church.
In "Narrative Apologetics; Sharing the Relevance, Joy, and Wonder of the Christian Faith," Oxford University professor Alister McGrath writes:
"Humans are storytellers and story-dwellers. Some stories are received, some are discovered, and some are simply invented. C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia are fundamentally about discovering a story that makes sense of all other stories - and then embracing it, because of its power to give meaning and value to life. But which is the true story? Which are merely its shadows and echoes? And which are fabrications, tales spun to entrap and deceive?"
This is a crucial question Dr. McGrath asks because all of us live by the story we believe.
Christian Smith points out in his book "Moral, Believing Animals," that there are eleven contemporary meta-narratives that he believes shape the thinking of Western people. ( I won't list them all just some of the most common.)
The Progressive Socialism narrative. The Scientific Enlightenment narrative. The Capitalist Prosperity narrative. The Expressive Romantic narrative. The Chance and Purposelessness narrative. The Christian Meta-narrative.
Dr. McGrath offers helpful guidance to his readers in deciding which stories about our world and ourselves we should choose and how to know whether it is truthful and reliable:
"Which 'grand story' allows the best rendering of our complex universe? Which meta-narrative offers the most illumination of our shadowy world?"
Likewise in Lewis's Narnia we see the same perplexing dilemma faced by the Pevensie siblings as they listen to stories about the true origin of Narnia. They realize that they must make decisions about which persons and which stories are to be trusted. Will they believe the narrative of the White Witch or the one of the mysterious Aslan whose return is expected at any time?
This is the work of Christian apologetics: To concentrate on the question of the trustworthiness of the Bible narrative, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its power to illuminate and then change our lives.
Later that day I leaned against a fence post in the sheep field and watched the mama ewe and her twins. They were stretched out together on a soft layer of flattened hay sleeping in the afternoon sunshine. Thankfully they rested content, none the worse for wear.
I thought about how God seems to create stories to swirl and echo around us in our everyday lives. Stories that don't just encircle our ordinary routines, but actually draw us into his grand narrative.
Stories, some happy, some sad, but both challenge the latest cultural narratives of our day or of ages gone by, stories that excite the imagination and give us a glimpse of some glorious, eternal future we long to embrace.
Stories that whisper of One who will rescue and redeem us from sin and a wicked, deceiving enemy who relentlessly pursues us. A Shepherd, who is firmly, but also gently, sliding us out into his marvelous light, into the story that resonates with the cry of every human heart while dispelling existential despair. A story that ends, but really begins, when we are finally guided safely home to rest content in the arms of Jesus, having been removed from the entanglements and entrapments of this "shadowy world."
But the question remains: Which story will you believe?
No comments:
Post a Comment