The class I am currently taking has me steeped in reading memoirs and narrating parts of my own personal history. It leaves me thinking more than usual (which, good grief is already a lot) on home and what shapes us and the way we understand the hand of God in it all.
Many things come to mind as I try to trace these threads of my life, and move forward with open hands. One is this: God has taken up residence here, and I am on the lookout for him.
In writing narrative nonfiction, and memoir in particular, it takes some work to distance yourself from the material you are writing about. To portray hurtful circumstances with insight and empathy, instead of falling into one dimensional villainy. It requires you to have some perspective on your experience, to make some sense of it even if that sense is not conclusive. Anyone can sit down and write out all their dirty laundry, but what makes the laundry worth reading? Those who do memoir well are able to find the purpose in sharing their story, that thin shred of light that illuminates their one small corner of the universe, and connects it to the shared humanity in their reader.
One memoir that was not on my course list but has been as instructive and helpful as any that I’ve read, was Philip Yancey’s, “Where the Light Fell.” In it he tells the story of growing up in the shadow of a widowed mother and her extreme version of fundamentalism. He pulls no punches, hides behind no platitudes. And yet, along the way, in spite of cruelty, hypocrisy, doubt and disbelief, the hand of God finds him.
I listened to “Where the Light Fell” instead of reading it, as I didn’t want to use a digital version. It took a couple chapters to get into, but once I did, I was so grateful to listen to Philip Yancey read his own story. He knows where he meant to emphasize, where he meant to pause, he knows where he was being ironic, and where he has to almost whisper in hushed words. Listening to him work through the hard years of his young life, I was moved by the way he turned his face to the light when it fell on him. Often he was not looking for it. But it warmed him just the same.
Yancey’s memoir is a witness. It is a witness to families that are broken, and are not put back together in the end, even with God’s presence in their midst. It is a witness to the confusion of church and the people of God— how those who say they speak for God can often be wrong. It is a witness to grace that keeps showing up, and is inexplicable in its power.
This, I think, is the power of memoir— the power of witness. Recently our church family has been studying the book of Acts, and it is interesting to me that Jesus calls those who follow him to be his witnesses. In a sense, he is asking all of us to display the memoirs of our life with Jesus. Though this may include the airing of our dirty laundry, our sins and our sad stories, the purpose of our witness is to show how Jesus has taken up residence in our lives, and is making them new.
A friend recently shared with me some really dreadful things she had done in her marriage. Her story of unfaithfulness was hard to hear. It was hard for her to share. And yet it was beautiful. A witness to the ways God shed his light on her, and would not leave her in her darkness. A witness to the way she responded to that light. A witness to how the world is broken, and stories are not patched up easily or with full resolution in this life. But God is there, present, active, ready to redeem.
As I look at my own life, narrating the memories that are sometimes painful, wondering how much I am destined to repeat, I have been challenged to remember that God has moved in, and that his presence changes everything.
“But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms.” (Romans 8, MSG)
May your days and the rest of your week, in all of its limitations, be experienced on God’s terms.
Thanks for reading,
Christine
Thanks for fighting to sit in the slivers of light and reflect it out. I love you, friend, and can't wait to read your memoirs. : )