As I mentioned at the end of the most recent post in this series on searching for common ground between the spiritual values promoted by Indigenous cultures and the Christian tradition, today’s post will shift the focus away from values themselves to the mechanisms through which those tools are embodied. Specifically, today I’d like to … Continue reading Embodying Values in Story
Yesterday, I wrote about some of the complications involved in telling the stories of our lives. I focused particularly on the problems with endings — how ending them too soon can cause us to misunderstand our stories, and how not ending them at all can leave us stuck in the past or paralyzed like a … Continue reading The Messy Middle (Part II of The Stories of our Lives)
As regular readers here will know, I think and care a lot about the idea of story. And they will also know that the story of my life so far has had a lot of twists and turns. One of the most common reactions people have when they hear my story is to say, "Wow. … Continue reading The Stories of our Lives
Story is everything. Everything is story. Story-telling is a fundamental part of being human. We all do it, every day, whether we are aware of it or not. We are wired to make meaning, to seek patterns and connections between people and events, causes and effects. This is a critical and wonderful part of what … Continue reading Changing the Story
I recently read a beautiful novel called The Lovely War. On the surface it's a fairly typical story about the strength of love amid the ravages of war. What sets it apart from similar stories is that the chapters are narrated from the varying perspectives of different Greek gods: Aphrodite (Love), Ares (War), Apollo (Creativity … Continue reading Archetypes
Matthew Root 