40 Days of Story: Let’s wander, wonder together!

You fabulous friends…

 

I can’t resist inviting you on a 40-day adventure with me. Let’s call it a road trip of head + heart.

 

Forty days to be curious about our own stories–to wander around them, be in wonder of them, and make our home in the story we most desire.

 

Here’s my less than secret aim: May each of us find the story we most need to invigorate us to become more of who we are, and perhaps even bring us back to life again.

 

The format is simple. Each day I will pose a question that invites you to reflect on your own story. I am mainly working from a screenplay story structure. But as you know, few real life stories get sorted in 120 minutes. So there’s that. Expect mess.

 

The adventure can be as epic–or cinéma vérité -as you need it to be.  But let’s do this!

 

Here’s Day #1: What’s the story you most want to wake up to? 

 

Hint: We live our lives smack in the middle of 100 stories–often not even knowing it. So, what’s the one story you want to pay attention to during this season?

Let’s get at it this way:

 

Conflict drives a story. Desire defines it.

 

What do you desire to desire?

 

Perhaps it’s clear. You want to fight to make your marriage work, but even as that thought flashes you feel scared or cynical or exhausted by it. So maybe it doesn’t feel so clear. Or maybe you want to learn to paint, share more of your ideas at work, start to write again or learn to talk with your teenager?

 

As we begin this journey, it can be hard to name the one story out of the hundred we want to not only give our attention to but also our hopes. But great stories always entail great risks.

 

I’ll tell you this. These 40-days of story feel risky for me already. I’ve carved out a career of chasing and crafting other people’s stories. And I love it! I am made for it, good at it, dedicated to it. But here’s my confession: I often feel clumsy–utterly ill-equipped–to share mine. So, I want to pay attention to that.

 

But if I’m even more candid, there’s something else. I long to know and be known, love and be loved in deeper ways in this season.

 

And that’s the magic of story. You want one thing. And there ends up being something deeper behind it. But that’s for another day…when we talk about external and internal quest.

 

As I leave you on this Ash Wednesday, I can’t resist noting these 40 Days happen to be during Lent. You may or may not have any context to that. But it’s a nod to Jesus wandering in the wilderness for 40 days, and it ends as the epic of epics. His is a divine and earthy story of deep desire, crazy conflict, and ultimate choice. Life. Death. Resurrection.

 

It’s transformation. And that is at the heart of all stories.

 

So, let’s get to our beginning question one last way: What do you want to have transformed? Or, how do YOU want to be transformed?

 

That’s your story. Now tell me about it…if you dare.