"If you could live in any story, which one would you choose?"  We started asking this question in our family back when my children were preschoolers, and we still ask it now, well over a decade later.  In the early years, when the kids' bedtime reading was limited to picture books, we'd debate the merits of Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood over Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest, or compare Peter Pan's Neverland to Dr. Seuss' Whoville.

As the kids' reading abilities grew, so did our imagined destinations.  Over the years, we cycled through Narnia, Wonderland, and Oz.  For a while, my daughter's heroine was Anne of Green Gables, so we "lived" on Prince Edward Island and bemoaned our carrot-colored hair.  My son's hero at the time was Harry Potter, so we spent equal time at Hogwarts Castle, learning spells and playing Quidditch.  Our Middle Earth phase lasted for years, and required many, many decisions about Tolkien's elaborate story-world: Would we live in Rivendell or the Shire?  Be elves, dwarves, hobbits, or humans?  Venture into Mirkwood?  Visit Lothlorien?  Or hazard the long darkness of Moria?

Just the other day, my son said, "I hope things happen in heaven.  I hope heaven has a good story.  Otherwise, it'll be boring."

In my column last week, I wrote about my changing relationship with theology, creed, and doctrine.  I wrote that while I find the Christian creeds both beautiful and instructive, doctrine by itself is not fostering the intimate relationship with God I hunger for.  So I'm considering other models, other paths, other doors to walk through.  As I look back on my years of "living in stories" with my kids, it strikes me that I might benefit from living in a spiritual story, too.

My son's comment — "I hope heaven has a good story" — speaks to our innate passion for narrative, plot, arc, and meaning.  Storytelling is one of the oldest and most universal forms of communication human beings have.  Far more than we love propositions and principles, we love leaning in to hear a good story.  "What happened next?" we ask with bated breath.  "Why did she do that?"  "Did the villain get his comeuppance?"  "Will the heroine live happily ever after?

The first words of the book Christians hold most sacred are, "In the beginning."  The Bible is full of rich, colorful, and multi-layered stories.  The Old Testament contains dozens of them, and so do the Gospels and the Book of Acts.  Jesus himself taught in parables, which are essentially mini-stories.

Why is this?  Why do humans love stories?  Why does Christianity center around them?  And what do stories have to do with God?

Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel prefaces his novel, The Gates of the Forest, with this Hasidic parable:

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: "I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories.

I love this possibility.  The possibility that God created us because he, too, enjoys a good story.  The possibility feels true to me because it affirms what I know and experience in my everyday life.  I don't get to know myself, other people, or God through lists of facts, principles, and abstract universals.  I get to know myself, other people, and God through shared experiences.  Lived adventures.  Plot twists and surprise endings.  Stories.

Maybe this is because stories allow for more complexity and messiness than facts do.  Good stories teach us that life is complicated, that easy answers rarely satisfy, and that even the best "happily ever after" endings enact a price.  But good stories also teach us that our lives aren't random and meaningless, even when they appear to be.  Good stories promise us meaning and coherence — our lives matter because they are essential parts of a larger whole.  Most importantly, good stories point beyond themselves.  "We are not alone," they remind us.  Good stories begin and end with an Author.

What does it mean to live my faith as story?  I'm not entirely sure yet.  For starters, it means acquainting myself with a God who is much more dynamic and spirited than the God of abstract dogma.  This God piques my interest.  A God who loves stories — to borrow my son's language again — isn't a boring God.  He's a curious God, a listening God, a welcoming God. 

But living faith as story also requires me to live my life more attentively.  It requires me to practice an awareness that what I see is not all there is.  For the past few months, my family has been hooked on a TV series called, "Once Upon a Time."  Its premise (at least in Season 1) is that all of our favorite fairy tale characters, having been cursed by a powerful Evil Queen, are living in exile in our world — specifically, in a town called Storybrook, in backwoods Maine.  But the queen has wiped their memories, and they have no idea who they really are or where they come from.  Jiminy Cricket is a psychotherapist.  The Blue Fairy is a nun.  Snow White is a lonely schoolteacher named Mary Margaret who has no idea that David — the cute guy lying in a coma at the local hospital — is Prince Charming, the love of her life.

It falls to a little boy (of course), to discover the truth, thwart the Evil Queen, and convince the inhabitants of Storybrook that the story they think they're living in is only partial.  That there's more.  That there's magic.

I think this is our work, too.  To remember that the story we're living in is only part of a much bigger Story.  To trust that God's Story and ours are intimately connected, even when — especially when — we can't see those connections clearly.

In her memoir, Still, Lauren Winner recounts a story she heard from a friend.  When the friend was twelve years old and preparing for Confirmation, she backtracked.  She told her father she wasn't sure she could go through with it.  She wasn't sure she could believe everything she was supposed to believe, and she didn't want to make a promise of faith she couldn't keep. 

Her wise father responded with this: "What you promise when you are confirmed is not that you will believe this forever.  What you promise when you are confirmed is that this is the story you will wrestle with forever."

A story to wrestle with.  A story to live in.  A God who loves stories.  Amen to all three. 

Image credits: Wikipedia.org.