EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Story and the telling of stories have been the way we've made sense of our existence since the beginning of time. Join me today as I entertain our present-day reality by encouraging us to see it for what it is—a big ol' story.

Episode theme song ‘Sunbeam’ by EFGR

TRANSCRIPT

Today I’m going to elaborate on ‘story’ and some of what I believe we create to make sense of our existence. 

I feel for the people that lived back in the day before organized societies formed, and before religion took a stronghold on people. I wonder if we haven’t always dating back even before Christ and the more ancient religions, had the same existential pondering and attempts to make sense of our lives and what we’re actually doing here as we do today?

Now imagine—I’m a far too hairy neanderthal person. The sun rises, I go about my day, I hunt and gather food, I provide for the babies I’ve brought into the world, and then I go to sleep and I wake up and do it all again.

 I can’t write anything because I can barely speak except for audibly-fluctuating grunts.

Or, I am a male and female who finally puts some clothes on and exits the Garden, have babies, two boys to be exact, who are hellions, one of which ends up killing the other. And I suddenly wonder, “What is all this cray-cray about?” 

I can’t write either, because I’m the first human and I don’t recall which of the seven days God created pencils. So, I just tell people my story, and then they tell people that story, then a whole bunch of people start telling that story. 
 
 [No, seriously. They heard a voice that told them not to eat fruit, and then a snake talked to them…]

Okay, let’s advance in time, but still before the industrial and technological revolutions. We don't have meteorologists or weather technology to announce what is about to happen in the sky. It just opens up and dumps things on us. And makes us think, “There’s something or someone up there. And they must be very angry because listen to all of the noise they’re making.”

Our minds make things up to explain what that something up there is. Our minds are often led to wonder, “what's this really all about?”

What if the constructs of our lives today are simply the creations and results of the very first existential crisises? (Is that word?)

No one can really argue the fact that humans have amazing and powerful imaginations—and we are capable of making up just about any story. Especially when it’s to help us understand or make sense of what is happening outside of us (or, even inside of us). 

We don’t know what happened back then, in either scenario. Or if either of those stories actually holds any water. Nobody really knows, right? We just know as much as we’ve consumed and digested the information that has been handed down over the centuries, or that we’ve heard, read or have access to.

We can surmise anything and make anything up in our mind and we can add a story that supports it. It’s just what we do. 

For the record, I’m not saying what we make up isn’t true. I think anything we bring into our awareness and land on is real and true for us. 
 
 A common story is, as I’ve already alluded, one of a deity (God) whose rules we must follow lest we suffer peril. That’s true for some people. That’s not true for others. 

It’s a story some people believe. It’s a story others prefer wouldn’t even be told. Kind of like certain people wanting to bury critical race theory or pass laws that make it illegal to mention the reality that LGBTQ persons, and their families, exist in the world. 

Nothing is excluded in story form (which is all of life) that isn’t to some going to be embraced, and to others denied or attempted to be buried. Religion and the basis of religion is a prime example of what I’m referring to. 

And for reason. It’s all a story. Now, is it a true story? Believers believe it is. Non-believers think it’s a fairy tale.

And all those perspectives have a place, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Story. It keeps us in a lane. I think we think it keeps us from going kooklaroo. We give things we don’t fully understand or can’t comprehend—like the power and mystery of God—a context or container because we might be afraid we will go off the rails if we don’t have it packaged in some certain way.

Even as a Catholic kid, my mind always stretched beyond those narratives. That wasn't always fun because it took me out of my comfort zone. What felt familiar and comfortable and secure was staying in my box and in the lane of what I knew and what the people I love taught me and also believed. 

“There's a heaven and a hell and you need to be good. And you’ve gotta be good these ways. Because that's the way it’s been for the last 3000 years.” 

Of course, I had amazingly loving parents and an extended family that fortified the good things about a relationship with the divine, so none of this was fire and brimstone. But there were parts of the story that troubled me.

Enter the little girl with an imagination and a mind that in itself is in hyperdrive, and then add the fact that she can think beyond right now to other possibilities. Her little overactive mind had a heyday. I started to question things. I question things constantly even to this day. I take in information. I reflect on it. I see how it fits for me. I don’t take someone else’s experience of a story as my own. 

I think in my questioning, I have personally found growth and expansion in my life. And in my relationship with the divine.

And remember, I’m talking about me, my personal journey. I think people have to start recognizing that there's not a universal reality that's true for me, and therefore has to also be true for you.

It's my truth, not yours. My relationship with the divine is not your relationship with the divine. The story I embrace isn’t going to necessarily be the story you embrace. It’s great when it is because we feel community and connection in that shared story. But it doesn’t mean my story that I embrace means you too have to embrace it. Or that my story that I embrace is true for anyone else.  

I think that’s where we’ve gotten things all screwed up. I don’t think that’s ever what it was supposed to be. Can we come together communally and celebrate things? Of course. That’s a beautiful thing. But that's people coming together communally and celebrating. What I don’t think is just or fair is to make your belief of a story have to be someone else’s belief of a story.

So while we are on the subject to which I’m alluding, Jesus and other spiritual masters talked about our ‘secret place’ for a reason. And I’m going to leave that right here for now because I have A LOT to say about that in another 7-minute segment. 

It might put a new spin on humanity’s continued existential crisis.

But what I want to leave you with today is… 
 
 Live your story. Make good stories. Everybody’s got a story, a multitude of stories. Tell them, and watch the impact they can have. Just don’t shove them down people’s throats and make them conform to embrace your story. 

Some will. Some won’t. Because there’s no universal story. 

We don’t belong in each other’s secret places. That’s why it’s a secret place. And no, if you Google what Jesus or the Bible meant by the ‘secret place,’ you do NOT suddenly have the preface to that particular forthcoming MIND CHALK episode, because I, as you can imagine, have a very different perspective on ‘The Secret Place.’
 
 See you tomorrow.

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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
Cover art by Jenée Arthur
The songs used in the individual episodes have been licensed for use.