“How can you tell a story about plants or chores that would be very interesting?”
A friend offered this honest response to my invitations to join the upcoming experiential storytelling workshops. “Maybe it takes someone who’s good at creative writing,” he continued, with an unspoken note of regret: And I’m not that someone.
Perhaps you have also asked this question. Maybe, like my friend, directly, in response to the invites I’ve been sharing for the Ordinary Time workshops and storytelling party.
Or maybe indirectly, in the form of broader musings about what it means to live an interesting story situated in what feels like a not very interesting life?
I was glad he asked. They’re valid questions, ones I’ve always asked, all the more so in the decade since my dad died. In fact, you could say they’re the questions that have animated this entire body of work.
To get one thing out of the way: if plants and chores are not interesting, what, I wonder, would be?
An incredible vacation, perhaps? The last time I went on such a vacation, showing up at one of the gorgeous cafes I’d seen on Instagram, with a sunlit panorama view of golden hour descending over the steep hills of Lisbon (and coincidentally, dozens of hanging plants), most people who had trekked to this Instagram-famous destination seemed disinterested in the former object of their longing, looking not out at the view or each other, but down at a screen.
So the high drama isn’t necessarily sufficient.
But I don’t think it is necessary either.
I think there are interesting stories in plants and chores, in whatever your ordinary life happens to consist of. A recent issue of Plough magazine, for example, brought me into the ordinary lives of two people with work very different from mine, telling stories about raising cattle and sailing. Each writer leveraged his mundane life to find a meaningful story. Tangible is my own version of this.
Any simple thing can be interesting—paradoxically, by making the choice to give it our interest. Another way of saying this is paying attention. When we pay attention, even the most ordinary things—plants, chores—have a way of revealing facets that can form the basis of a host of interesting stories.
Exhibit A: children at play, making worlds out of rocks and pillows, a backyard hose. Can adults who have lost this art relearn it?
here’s a secret: ultimately, the invitation is not to tell an interesting story. It is to live well.
With plants and chores?
If the only way to live well is something big, something else, beyond the mundane contours of our ordinary life, we are destined for discontent. Dissatisfaction with the life I have, believing the good life is somewhere else, is a temptation I—and most of humanity—are prone to.
But what if living well—with joy, purpose, satisfaction—was not confined to the mountain highs? What if it was also ours to enjoy in the everyday life of the valley? Wouldn’t that be worth pursuing?
OK, but how?
A well-quoted excerpt from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes—The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
While the rest sit around and pluck blackberries, what is he who sees God doing?
He’s right there in the plants, same as everyone else. Only difference is he pays attention. Close examination of plants may yield any number of interesting stories. But the great latent power of an ordinary plant is that it is secretly afire with God.
The blackberry bush afire with God is a window to an enchanted world overlaying the one you’re already living in, where beauty astonishes, where gratitude infuses, where a tender soul stumbles on deep truth in a simple object. The plant may amaze you with glorious symmetry. The act of pruning may prod reflections on what pruning you may require, or your plant neglect may generate probing questions about why you avoid things you love. A flower’s elegance may lead to a reflection on the value of ephemeral beauty. I don’t know what a plant may hold for you, but if it’s crammed with heaven, some fragment is likely to burst forth and grab hold of those who choose to pause and see.
Sidebar: Is this only for Christians? By no means. As a Christian, I believe God is the source of all goodness, beauty, joy, all those things we most desire to live a good life, that God is everywhere. If that’s true, then surely the things that matter most can be found in the ordinary. When we pay attention to the blackberry bush, we may come face to face with the divine. But I don’t think lack of belief, or different beliefs, stop a person from experiencing this as common grace, a term Christians use to describe the goodness of God infused in our world, accessible to all. What lack of belief may do, and this could be equally true of a Christian, is keep you from looking expectantly.
But if God is there, your lack of belief doesn’t change that. If God isn’t, I suppose we’re on our own in finding meaning in an earthbound shrub. Either way, may as well practice paying attention and see what happens.
If it is the life that matters, and stories are only the symbols, the visible fruit—why tell stories?
This doesn’t come easily. Blackberries are delicious. Our phones are addictive. Our ordinary days are typically crammed less with heaven than with meetings and activities that make it hard to pause. It takes practice. And because it doesn’t come easily, or quickly, or on command, we probably need each other, too.
When people say storytelling makes us human I think they’re getting at the way sharing stories creates bonds to other people, allows them to behold us, to pay us attention and see who we really are. To witness the changes or challenges we wrestle with, to carry our burdens and share our joy.
More, storytelling changes the story, spurring a potentially virtuous spiral of observer effect. Having an intention of telling a story gifts us with a bias toward living life as if it were interesting, searching like a detective for clues of meaning in our ordinary lives. Telling the story then helps us frame and connect the clues, making meaning out of disparate things. The process of seeking to tell a story about something ordinary has a way of shaking that thing to life, making any common wardrobe a doorway to Narnia.
This is why I’m inviting you to come share your stories.
But first, I’m easing us in with a series of workshops to practice.
Together, we will experiment, build the muscle. Not every encounter will stun you silly with significance. Sometimes you’ll just see a blackberry bush. But even pausing to see it, really see it, and allow yourself to be open to what it might hold for you, increases the likelihood that you’ll be open to heaven bursting forth next time you stumble upon it.
