Living the Epic: Part One

Source 

                                     

Part One: The Heart of the Story

There were perhaps seventy of us, seated in a massive circle that filled the room. I squirmed in my metal chair, looking to each side at the unfamiliar faces surrounding me. I hated these sorts of things.

This was my second retreat with InterVarsity, and although I knew many of the people in the room by name, I only knew a few of them well. This retreat, we began with an icebreaker, a word that set my pulse flying and my brain wheeling. Here was the plan: we were all going to say our name, our year, and which fictional character we most identified with. I took those instructions, chewed on them for a while, and then despaired. Was I going to have anything clever to say? And why the deuce did I have to speak in front of this many people?!

Thankfully, the ice started breaking on the opposite side of the room. One after another, my peers hollered their names, years, and fictional friends across the cavernous space in the middle of the circle.

I'm a junior, a Bio major, and I identify with Shaggy from "Scooby Doo!"

I'm studying Theater, I'm a sophomore, and f I were a fictional character, I'd be Thor.

My favorite character is Jo from "Little Women, and I'm a Freshman English major."

Finally, my good friend sitting beside me gave her name and admitted she would be Peter Pan because she loves adventure and doesn't feel like growing up is mandatory. We all smiled, and then it was my turn. 

"My name is Samantha, I'm a senior, and if I was a fictional character I would be Maid Marian from Robin Hood."

Bam. Done. I breathed my relief, and happily passed the baton to the next breaker of ice. As I dwelt on my answer, though, my own curiosity spiked: why had I said that? Why did I identify with this character, this person from a story separate from my own? A story that wasn't even true! How long had I felt this way about a character from someone else's imagination? 

I realized I've always felt that way about the story of Robin Hood. When I was very little, we had Disney's Robin Hood  on VHS (yeah, remember those?). I remember curling up on the couch with my brothers and watching foxes, bears, and badgers acting out a medieval legend that has been told for centuries. I fell instantly, head-over-heels, absurdly in love with this story, even as five-year-old. I thought "That is an adventure, and that is a hero. I want that." During the summer, my friends and I would re-enact the story, running in the fields and holding secret meetings of Merry Men in a grove of trees. To us, it was real in its own way. Years later, I still get giddy over the legend of a nobleman fallen from grace who sees injustice and actually does something about it with the gifts and talents he has been given. So, if Robin is so great, why do I want to be Marian? Isn't she the damsel in distress? Well, it depends on which version of the story you've heard. Regardless, she is the heart and soul of a hero. She is his inspiration, his drive, his anchor. Without Marian, he becomes a vigilante with an agenda instead of a hero with a passionate heart and mind. Why settle for being just the hero with a bow when you can be his heart and the core of his purpose?

So, if someone asked you which fictional character you identify with, what would be your answer? Does it surprise you that you have an answer to what seems a nerdy, flippant question? It shouldn't. We are all made for stories. Did you know that? Think about the stories that shaped your life, your childhood, your beliefs. It doesn't have to be just books. What about comic book characters, television shows, movies, plays? Even if you HATE books (and some of you actually exist out there), you can assuredly think of a character that moves your heart and mind because you were created to identify with stories.

In their book The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge address the need for a narrative that is ingrained in our hearts. 

   

"As Eugene Peterson said, 'We live in a narrative, we live in story. Existence has a story shape to it. We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have characters.' Story is the language of the heart." 

Have you ever come away from a movie or a book and just ached in your heart because you wanted the story to be true? You wanted to be a part of something so poignant, so human, so epic, and suddenly ordinary life seemed as dull as a Physics textbook in comparison to this wildly illustrated and passionately told fairytale. Personally, there are stories that I crave, and the cravings change with the seasons.

In the warm, balmy nights of July, I want to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and imagine living amongst the fairies and fauns. In March, as the snow is melting and the sunlight suddenly seems so much starker and clearer than the golden light of summer. The sky is bigger, freer, and I just HAVE to read The Lord of the Rings. I watch or read Robin Hood every August, like clockwork, and Little Women in October when the romantic New England story seems particularly cozy. As absurd as it surely sounds, these stories are a part of my life, and have fueled my dreams, stoked my heart to action, shaped my thinking, and given me focus. Why? Because we are living in a narrative.Our lives have characters. Our lives have beginnings, good guys, bad guys, and endings. If we didn't see the humanity in storytelling, we'd be ignoring our own narratives.

Jane Austen once said stated that “a person who found not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid.” While that seems a bit harsh to my mind, there is a kernel of truth in it. Our hearts are fashioned to be a part of a story, so the stories of others do give us joy and pleasure. So, how does this translate to real life? What happens when the movie ends, or we put the book down? Are we cursed to live dull lives, jumping from one book to the next to silence the longing in our hearts? Where is our story?

Check in Monday for the great reveal: our story