To be Told: Thoughts on “co-authorship”

Everyone has a story. Put another way, everyone’s life is a story. But most people don’t know how to read their life in a way that reveals their story… It is the force that orients us toward the future, and yet we don’t give it a second thought, much less careful examination. It’s time to listen to our own story.

–Dan Allender, To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Life as a story that can be read and studied. It’s an intriguing metaphor, and to a book geek like myself, the very prospect of seeing myself as a text to read and write makes sense.

In this book, Dan Allender presents a revision of the idea that God “says things” through different events — offers instructions, makes statements about himself, answers prayers. Instead, Allender’s idea broadens this by suggesting that God is developing certain themes in each of our lives, and if we can get a clear glimpse of what these themes are, we can take part more fully in where God — with our editorial cooperation — is taking them. This book was a logical follow-up to Buechner’s Sacred Journey, which presented an autobiographical reading of its author’s life. It could be seen as a case study of the kind of thinking Allender advocates here. He moves successively through the subjects of our life as a story that reveals who we are and who God is; how our lives are not random, but have meaning; how we can take part in “writing our future”; and how we should tell our stories to each other.

I wanted to like this, and even tried to enter in by generating some responses to the writing prompts Allender gives at the end of each chapter. But ultimately I found the book off-putting.

One reason is that, as inThe Sacred Journey, this idea ends up rather narcissistic in the execution. Here are our core questions, taken from the Old Testament story of Hagar, according to Allender: “Where am I? Who am I? And what do I want to become?” Three sentences, three “I’s.” I would agree that we ask these questions, but does a Christian world view make them central? They seem to seduce us toward a self-preoccupation that’s contrary to the biblical message. And even though the book gives some exhortation to love others in the section on responding to one another’s stories, on the whole it impressed me as a temptation to a self-centered interpretation of Christian spirituality — though I don’t think this is what Allender intends.

Another reason is that I found the lingo distracting. I’ve read a little John Eldredge (his book Epic has much in common with this one), and enjoyed some of it very much. (Waking the Dead, for instance.) But after awhile it all starts to sound the same. For me this book had the same effect, partly because it uses certain code words until they seem to have no meaning. “Desire” is one. “Naming” is another. Above all, “story” becomes a word that seems to stand for everything. Here’s an example:

[Paul] presumed that a new bond of “story” will not only alter a single relationship but also will, in time, destroy the narrative of slavery. Paul banked on past story — specifically, the story of how God had used him in Philemon’s life. That story was the backdrop of a new story: the saving of Onesimus. One story of redemption links to the next. And over time all stories of redemption come to have a common center. The story line may differ, but the result is the same: transformation.

What’s accomplished here by interposing the word “story” no less than eight times in this short passage? In what sense is “story” the key element here — rather than simply “life” or “experience”? It began to feel artificial to me. And sometimes, the vivid writing left me thinking, “Wow, this must be profound, but… what is he saying?”

My overall reservation with the idea of locking in on your “life theme” so you can hold the pen with God is this: what if you’re wrong? Or maybe more accurately, how can you be complete? As we readers know, there’s always more to a good story than meets our eye. Suppose we get focused on one idea of our purpose in life, when in fact God has other ideas — or at the very least, God sees that thing that we view as most important as a mere subtheme of the main “story” he wants our lives to reveal? I have an almost superstitious resistance to maneuvering God into a corner and acting like I’ve got his plans figured out. My ability to discern what he’s really up to isn’t ever going to be complete, no matter how many “story feasts” I take part in with others who offer their input.

I’m a fairly reflective person. But I have a strong inclination to wait till Heaven before seeing the overall impact of my life. I don’t really want to get preoccupied with writing and reading my own life as though that were the main course (or maybe I should say, I don’t want to get any more preoccupied than I already am!). I’m better off doing the things God puts before me, keeping an honest heart before him in prayer, and not burdening every decision with the self-consciousness that seems necessary to put these ideas into practice.

I feel like I want to end on a more positive note, because even though overall I felt skeptical about some of the ideas here, there are things in this book that I really liked. I liked the emphasis on community, and felt a little wistful — as I did when I read Eldredge’s Waking the Dead — to be part of a community like Allender describes here. I liked his distinction between real inner healing, and “spiritual lobotomy.” I liked his passion for his subject. And despite all I’ve written above, I like the idea of seeking a bigger perspective on life with God. If we’re to have “the mind of Christ,” we need a view of things that includes more than our own small circle.

In my high school youth group years ago, we once watched a little film called “The Music Box.” It featured a man who got up each day and plodded through the drudgery of his life. He was like the “I gotta get up to make the doughnuts” guy on the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. Then one day, he found a music box. Every time he opened it, three funky angels appeared in the room with him, and if I remember it right, he would end up dancing and rejoicing — but he kept it all for his personal use.

Maybe at the end he shared his wonderful secret. I honestly don’t remember the ending. But the point was that he needed to. I feel like Allender is doing something similar in this book. He’s found something he’s excited about, and he’s cracking the lid so we can listen too, and take some of it into our own lives. I failed to fully appreciate all of it, but his zeal for the things of God — even as they’re revealed in tragedy — is contagious.