Pilgrim Soldier

A few weeks ago now I was reading Journeying Out by Ann Morisy in which she talks a lot about the power of story in people’s lives. This articulated a concept which I always knew at some level, but about which I had never really thought. Her examples made perfect sense and gave me a new insight into some of the problems the society and the church face today.

Bringing this right up to date, I had a conversation with Zoe & Patrik today that touched to some extent on a similar area. I spoke about a situation I had yesterday in which a conversation I was having with someone just didn’t ring true, and Patrik responded with examples from his own life in which people have either lied or have elaborated about an experience when talking to him.

Now this is something we all do at times I’m sure. It’s the clichéd story of the “fish that got away”! Don’t ask me why though but I questioned Patrik to see whether or not it was mostly men who did this to him, and it turns out it was.

I’ve realised over a number of years, both from my own individual experience and that of others, that the Power of Story is particularly strong in boys and men.

Why does this happen? Well I think that a lot of it is the way men are defined in western society. One of the first questions men ask each other is “What do you do?” and then we categorise each other based on the answer! This is because, very often, men are defined by their experiences ie what job they do or the sorts of things they have done in their lives. Shallow I know but true! In childhood we instinctively seem to know this so we invent stories about things that never happened or elaborate on ones that did, because we want to impress our friends and it can even turn into a competition on who has the most exciting or crazy experience. Moving into adolesence we want to impress girls so the stories continue.

Now normally there comes a point in our lives when we realise that the true life story is actually more interesting than the one we’ve been making up. For me this happened around the age of 21 when I realised that I had moved more times in the last 4 years than many people do in their whole lives. Unfortunately though there are others who go through life feeling inadequate about themselves and so the stories continue. They continuously make up stories so that society is more accepting of them and so the cycle continues. Eventually, they have told a story so many times that it actually becomes like a reality for them.

Over the years I’ve seen so many men caught up in this trap and it breaks my heart. I’ve seen good Christian men who have such low self-esteem that the stories continue, yet they worship the God who knows their true worth.

The thing that makes it even sadder is that Patrik told me that I’m the first man he’s ever met who has admitted to this story-telling power, yet we both know that its true. When I think about it I don’t think that I’ve ever known another man who has discussed it either. This makes me wonder just how many men there who are still trapped by this power of story. How many are still trapped simply because no-one was prepared to stand up and say that this happens?

I don’t know whether any other man has ever faced this. I don’t know whether this is me reading more into the situation than actually exists. I do though think that if it is true then God doesn’t want men to be trapped like this anymore. Jesus came that we might have life in all its abundance (John 10:10) and this sort of life isn’t what so many men experience. Society has forced good men into believing something that just isn’t true and I believe that God wants to release us from that.