The Big Narrative

From the primeval savannas of Africa to the stone age caves of Europe.  From the tents of the ancient Near East to the jungles and rainforests of South America.  From the riverbanks of the Indus to the mudflats of the Mississippi, people from every tribe, language, and nation have gathered around campfires to find purpose and meaning for their lives.  From the pre-historic to the present, people have gathered around tables and have met in meeting halls to tell stories.  Stories are what define us as people and what differentiate us from other animals.  Of all the amazing feats our big brains are capable of achieving, the most crucial and probably the most underrated of all is our ability to make the connections that allow a narrative to take shape.  The most human of all human characteristics is the fact that we tell stories - we concoct and shape narratives.  And when we are not writing our own narratives, we are busy listening to the narratives of others.  Other people's stories help shape and inspire the stories that each of us are busy writing and rehearsing.

We all tell stories, but we don't all tell the same stories.  Even the story that we believe and that we aim to live into can change and evolve, as we grow and develop.  Nor do we always understand the story that we are busy creating.  It's often in hindsight that we more fully understand the words and actions that have contributed to the narrative that we've participated in.  And with reflection we are given the gift of revision - we can continue to edit, even as we continue to write (both literally and metaphorically).  

I've been shaped by an ancient story for my entire life.  It's a story that transcends continents and millennia.  It's a story that probes the recesses of the human heart and a story that offers a resolution to the ultimate fate of the universe.  It's a story I've questioned and it's a story that has questioned me at my most raw and vulnerable.  It has given me hope when all my hope was lost and it's a story that has convicted me to my core.  Through this big narrative, I've been both vindicated and exonerated, while at times being exposed as a fraud.  But this story has never left me bored or complacent.  I'm always compelled to come back for more.  

In 2010, I began a blog a few months after moving to Dublin, Ireland.  My wife, Juli, my daughter, Ashlyn, and a team of 7 other individuals and I had accepted the challenge to create a new community of people shaped and molded by God's story of creation to new creation on the north side of Dublin.  The purpose of the blog was to simply reflect on our story in Ireland with the hope that it might shed a little light on the stories of others around the world.  When our family moved back to the States in 2015, I continued to write on the same platform with the same hope in mind.  If nothing else, I was inconsistent at blogging while living in Texas and Colorado.  At the end of 2021, my family moved to the Kansas side of the greater Kansas City area.  I wrote a few more blog posts after making the move, but all in all, I feel like "Near St. Anne's and the Sea" has run its course and it's time for a new chapter, if not a new beginning in my blogging adventures.  If you would like to read about our experiences in Ireland and beyond, you can do so at Near St. Anne's and the Sea.

But here and now, you are reading the first post of a brand-new blog, "The Big Narrative".   In this blog, I invite you to join me in exploring the ins and outs, the nooks and crannies, the highs and lows, and the ebbs and flows of the big narrative of Genesis to Revelation, more commonly known as, the Bible.  Over time, we will hopefully cover most, if not all, of this epic story.  It will not be a linear exploration, just as most of our stories don't often proceed from A to B onto Z.  Rather, it will be a journey of starts and stops, with a good deal of dead-ends and detours along the way.  But my hope is that through the process of the reading, writing, rehearsing, and editing, we will all be just a little bit closer to understanding our own personal stories and the grand story of the universe too.  I realize that's a big ask, but after all, it's a big narrative!  - Shay