stories...............

 

How do we learn the difference between willfulness and willingness, the distinction between magic and miracle?  The answer will come as no surprise: in the practice and process of storylistening and storytelling.  "Story," the novelist John Gardner observed, "details the gap between intentions and results."  Story conveys the reality of human freedom, for although "real," our freedom is limited, and although "limited," our freedom is real.  To live with an awareness of story is to recognize, with philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, that "We are never more than the co-authors of our own stories."

     Every story details a mixture of what Niccolò Machiavelli named necessità, virtù, and fortuna: cause, choice, and chance.  The very combination of the three reveals that we are neither completely controlled nor completely in control.  We can will, in other words, but we must also be willing.  This can be a difficult, even painful lesson to accept, for we tend to want "either-or," especially in matters of being "controlled" or "in control."  Accepting the impossibility of this willful demand—becoming willing to accept the limited freedom that is ours—is one gift of story.  Stories reveal a spirituality that views life not as a problem to be solved, but as a mystery to be lived. . . .

. . . We find miracle only when we stop looking for magic.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning