Middle of the story

As is the always case, it seems I start watching films from somewhere in the middle. I flip on the television and the movie is in progress. The characters are always in the middle of some discovery. This particular film showed a man as he struggled with his identity independent of this family and at the same time formed by that same family. After the movie ended I flipped to a news channel to see what was happening in the world. The news was filled with the stories of a man about to be sworn in as President. Other stories were reported about the plane crash and its survivors. Still more stories about the war in the middle east.

We live our lives in the middle of stories. As I walked through the hospital yesterday we walked by the place where newborns are behind the glass so visitors can see them. These children are at the very beginning of their own lives but they too are in the midst of a story of a family. On another floor I stepped into a hallway where a young woman came out of room in great distress talking on the cell phone that they were disconnecting the machines from her loved one. We went to the children’s area saw young children in hospital beds with family gathered around. I was in the midst of all of the stories. I couldn’t help but think that we never get to see the beginning of a story.

My daughter asked me about what I was doing before I married her mother. I told her the stories of living in Kansas City working professionally, I told her the stories of Graduate School in Alabama, I told her the stories of being an undergraduate in Wisconsin. These stories define who I am. I couldn’t help but wonder if a small change here or there in life would have led me to this same present place? This brief moment in time? In the movie story we see a father, a mother, and a son who are all struggling with the choices they are making. During a moment from the movie a friend gives advice to the mother from a Joseph Campbell book. “When you feel the most lost, close your eyes and remember when you felt the happiest. Not the most ecstatic, just the most happiest. That is your bliss. That is the path to follow to find your way again. Follow your bliss.” I had always thought of that idea of bliss as finding the ecstatic highs in life. It struck me that maybe bliss was something different than I had originally thought.

At the end of the movie the son finds a book with an inscription to him from his recently deceased father on the day of his graduation from high school. The young man’s name came from the story contained in the book that defined who his father was and even who the young man had become. The mother simply states “there are no accidents” you were always meant to find this. At that moment he embraces his father’s gift.

As I contemplate the middle of my own story I can’t help but think of myself in relation to the other stories that I am a part of. In many ways I do feel that there are no accidents in life. There are mistakes, but we need to make those mistakes to guide us on to the next chapter in our story. I’ve had times myself when I was stuck in a chapter and couldn’t seem to turn the page.

When I close my eyes and think of happiness with these thoughts it isn’t the extremely high points of the story so far that come to mind. It surprises me that it is a much quieter sense of happiness that comes to mind. A larger story unfolds. I also feel extremely grateful that I have the opportunity to tell stories for a living. We are always in the middle of a story aren’t we?