Story Hunger

“I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller." - G.K. Chesterton

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” – C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Lately I've been thinking about my mental diet: what I input through books, the internet, television, radio; what I dwell on through thoughts and conversations. My mental diet hasn’t been too great lately. It’s like with food: if I eat nothing but pizza and fries for days, I know I'll end up feeling groggy and yucky. Same goes for mental junk food, which for me are mostly unedifying novels and TV shows. I turn to that stuff for the same reason people eat comfort food. For escape, for entertainment, because it gives me an emotional and mental rush that feels good.

There’s nothing wrong with a well-crafted tale, exercising the imagination, or zoning out with a show to unwind, but the problem for me is that the line between restful leisure and numbing addiction is a fine one. I’m either binge-reading or binge-watching, and eventually it steals away my ability to be present. Instead of being attuned to what God is showing me in my own world, I am reliving imaginary scenes in my mind. Instead of being fresh and rested for the new day, I am just trying to make it through because I'm tired from reading all night. Instead of being content and thankful for my life, I want to be somewhere else.

At the heart of it, I crave romance, a journey, a world: I crave a story, one that is bigger, more exciting, or different than mine. I’m constantly searching for good stories, and when I run out, I settle for mediocre ones, and when those run out, I settle for cheap ones.

I am trying to see that this is how God created me, because there is a story, and in this story there is a journey, there is the promise of a world that is our world but altogether different and better, and there is the resolution of a romance that has been going on for a long time. A romance that is like the coming together of two best friends, of a king with an ordinary girl, of a supernatural being with a mortal one whom he loves into a supernatural transformation, of a protector with the one he sacrificed for, of a groom with his long-lost bride. Pretty much every romantic construct ever written or directed into popularity is in this great story, and it is the story of God and Jesus’ love for me.

I have a hard time feeling this. I want the faster, cheaper rush, the one concocted by humans, but it only leaves me wanting more. But God is in it for the long haul. He wants me to hear and see the story he is telling in my life, and he wants me to see that that itself is only the prologue for the story that comes later, for eternity, the story that really matters. In the meanwhile, I’m trying to wean myself off this mental fast food I’ve become accustomed to. I want to sleep with peace at night, to rise with eagerness in the morning, to be present in the day. I want to see people and ask good questions. I want to listen to whatever God is saying in my day. I want to be able to tell the right stories to my kids when they ask for one. I don’t want to look back one day and say, well God, I missed a lot of this story I’m in, because I was too busy trying to escape into another one.