Stories and Destinations

November 9, 2022

I like stories that have endings. Or at least have a destination. While I’m reading or watching a story, I like to believe that it will go somewhere.

Some authors choose to do otherwise. They introduce new twists and turns in the story. Sometimes that makes it more interesting, but sometimes it just feels distracting. With some authors, particularly those writing a lengthy work, I start to feel like they’ve lost connection with the plot. When that happens, I don’t pick up the next book in the series.

TV series have a different variant on this problem. In their creation, they rely heavily on the interactions between their main characters. If the characters change much over the course of the series, they lose those foundational relationships. I’ve seen many TV series keep their characters basically static – they don’t learn anything – in order to preserve dramatic tension. When that happens, I stop watching.

Life, on the other hand, is not a story with a destination. We may experience many moments in which something comes to completion much like the final words of a story, but those moments pass into new moments with new concerns and new opportunities. Completion is something of an illusion. What looks “finished” is a building block for the future.

Most of all, life is filled with learning. There is no virtue to preserving “dramatic tension” in life. Learn something new. Learn something different. Learn something trivial. Learn something important. Become a different person today than you were yesterday. Become a better person tomorrow than you are today.

In God’s sight, our lives here lead to a joyful end – but even death is not an end. In God’s sight, life and new life pass from one to the other.

Live, learn, love, and hope.

Blessings to you,

Pastor Eric