Dueling Narratives

During the last political cycle the term "narrative" was consistently overused by the pundits; but then pundits are always overusing the term du jour. And it's a compelling term. By it they meant "the way the candidate is presenting his story," or "spin," really, an overused word from previous cycles. For individuals, especially writers, a narrative style is fundamental to storytelling. We all have a narrative style; and--contra Bill O'Reilly--there is no such thing as a "no spin zone." For writers, it has chiefly to do with perspective--whether the story is told from in the first, second, or third person. But it reaches beyond that when it comes to a particular narrator's telling style and insight into human voices and motivations.

As individuals, we are all compulsive storytellers, and we spin everything. We tell ourselves stories every moment of every day. We explain our actions and experiences to ourselves and others; and since we are the protagonists of our stories, we generally come out looking good, smart, practical, maybe funny, wise, or heroic. This is why it is so difficult to say "I'm sorry." To use these words admits that we are sometimes the villain in someone else's story, if not our own. And sometimes we are. One of the most difficult things in life is awakening to a long story in which we are indeed a villain, yet have been narrating otherwise to ourselves, perhaps as misunderstood, pressed upon, somehow handicapped, or even a victim.

Examining our narratives is quite difficult, as difficult as it is for a writer to self-edit. Objectivity with respect to ourselves as ourselves, and ourselves vis a vis others, is all but impossible. Every adult child and parent in every family has a family narrative, featuring themselves as the misunderstood one, the rebel, the hard worker, the good kid, or the abused kid, etc. Every employee in a company has a company narrative, every partner in every relationship has a narrative. The only thing in the world that seeks to edit these stories is the competing narrative. If we dismiss competing narratives, we remain the author of a crude story, a first draft. If we lend too much credence to those who would edit our stories, we cease to be the authors of them, adopting perhaps the narrative of another. And sometimes this is necessary, sometimes the opposing narrative is the plain truth, and too fail to adopt it is to remain self-deceived. But most often not. How can we know? We can't, not objectively, not entirely. We must bring reason, a sense of fairness, a willingness to listen, and grace to every disagreement; that is, if we ever wish to spin more than crude stories.

Assuming for the sake of argument that he's there and that his perspective would be the absolute truth, what if God gave you a narrative of your life from his perspective: the perfect light that illuminates every subtle bend and corner, every pillar, pile of gold, and pile of shit in your narrative? Can you imagine such an objectively true narrative of your life? There are surely some "things" about ourselves of which we are absolutely convinced that are false, or only partly true, and other things we completely disown that are true after all. Some would see such a narrative as judgment day, when all is laid bare. This is not really helpful unless we have access to that narrative. Some say we do, that God is there evaluating us constantly. It is also said that Satan is "the accuser." If you hear God's or Satan's voice that clearly, you are to be congratulated, and you've probably noticed others avoiding you. Better to just voice your perspective, even if it hurts. We take comfort in the fact that you are probably not 100% correct, maybe only 90%. None of us is infallible, not in things of the heart, in relationships, in understanding others or interpreting our own behavior. We tell stories.

For each of us (psychopaths notwithstanding) there are times when a particularly uncomfortable, even devastating, truth about ourselves is somehow made evident to us. We crawl up into the attic and look at that portrait that has received all the moral injuries we have dealt ourselves, or we just look in the mirror and see more clearly the meanings of the lines on the face staring back at us; or someone else is honest enough to share the part of their narrative in which we have a cameo, or a major destructive role, or a heroic one.

We are all the time processing our experiences into a first-person narrative. Every time we tell someone else what we've been up to, how we were injured or deceived, or how we navigated a situation, we reveal this. The essence of good storytelling is being able to see a scene from multiple perspectives and to inhabit each one of them. Our stories become more interesting, and I'm sure truer, as we take other narratives into account.

I think it was historian Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper who described Archbishop Thomas Cramner as having the unfortunate ability to clearly see the two sides of every issue. Some people are like that, and it is surely a painful thing to be constantly scrutinizing one's own narrative in the light of competing narratives. This led to sincere proclamations of  Reformation doctrine, sincere recantations, and more sincere re-recantations. As a man of undisputed courage and honor, he likely convinced himself of the rightness of each position while he held it. He was, as you will recall, burned at the stake once he finally committed to the account of things he judged truest.