If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it as I have created you. p. 59
...most of our greatest fears are relational. It's all that stuff about forgiveness and risking rejection and learning to love. We think stories are about getting money and security, but the truth is it all comes down to relationships.
...essentially, humans are alive for the purpose of journey, a kind of three-act structure. They are born and spend several years discovering themselves and the world, then plod through a long middle in which they are compelled to search for a mate and reproduce and also create stability out of natural instability, and then they find themselves at an ending that seems to be designed for reflection. At the end, their bodies are slower, they are not as easily distracted, they do less work, and they think and feel about a life lived rather than look forward to a life getting started. he didn't know what the point of the journey was, but he did believe we were designed to search for and find something. And he wondered out loud if the point wasn't the search but the transformation the search creates. p. 69
You can call it God or a conscience, or you can dismiss it as that intuitive knowing we all have as human beings, as living storytellers; but there is a knowing I feel that guides me toward better stories, toward being a better character. I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness. p. 86
The real Voice is stiller and smaller and seems to know, without confusion, the difference between right and wrong and the subtle delineation between the beautiful and profane. It's not an agitated Voice, but ever patient as though it approves a million false starts. The Voice I am talking about is a deep water of calming wisdom that says, Hold your tongue; don't talk about that person that way; forgive the friend you haven't talked to; don't look at that woman as a possession; I want to show you the sunset; look and see how short life is and how your troubles are not worth worrying about; buy that bottle of wine and call your friend and see if he can get together, because remember, he was supposed to have that conversation with his daughter, and you should ask him about it.
So as I was writing my novel, and as my characters did what he wanted, I became more and more aware that someone was writing me. So I started listening to the Voice, or rather, I started calling it the Voice and admitting there was a Writer. I admitted something other than me was showing a better way. And when I did this, I realized the Voice, the Writer who was not me, was trying to make a better story, a more meaningful series of experiences that I could live through.
At first, even though I could feel God writing something different, I'd play the scene the way I wanted. This never worked. It would always have been better to obey the Writer, the one who knows the better story. I'd talk poorly about someone and immediately know I'd done it because I was insecure and I'd know I was a weak character who was jealous and undisciplined.
So I started obeying a little. I'd feel God wanting me to hold my tongue, and I would. It didn't feel natural at first; it felt fake, like I wwas being a character someone else wanted me to be and not who I actually was; but if I held my tongue, the scene would play better, and I always felt better when it was done. I started feling like a better character, and when you are a better character, your story gets better too. p. 87-88
If I learned anything from thinking about my father, it's that there is a force in the world that doesn't want us to live good stories. It doesn't want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something beautiful in to the world. I guess what I'm saying is, I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching people around us that life just isn't worth living.
I don't know why there are dark forces in the world, but there are. And I don't know why God allows dark forces to enter into our stories, but he does. p.116
Advertising does exactly this. We watch a commercial advertising a new volvo, and suddenly we feel our life isn't as content as it once was. Our life doesn't have the new volvo in it. And the commercial convinces us we will only be content if we have a car with forty seven airbags. And so we begin our story of buying a volvo, only to repeat the story with a new weed eater and then a new home stereo. And this can go on for a lifetime. When the credits roll, we wonder what we did with our lives, and what was the meaning. p. 123
The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you remembered. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It's about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. p177
Writing a story isn't about making your peaceful fantasies come true. The whole point of the story is the character arc. You didn't think joy could change a person, did you? Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But it's conflict that changes a person. p. 180
...enjoyed the natural high the body creates to trick us into thinking another human being might rescue us... p. 190
The oldest book of the Bible is supposedly the book of Job. It is a book about suffering, and it reads as though God is saying to the world, Before we get started, there's this one thing I have to tell you. Things are going to get bad.
Job is a good man whom God allows to be destroyed, except for his life.... Job calls out to God, asking why God would let this happen.
God does not answer Job's question. It's as though God starts off his message to the world by explaining there are painful realities in this life we cannot and will never understand. Instead, he appears to Job in a whirlwind and asks if Job knows who stops the waves on the shore or stores the snow in Wichita every winter. He asks Job who manages the constellations that reel though the night sky.
And that is essentially all God says to Job. God doesn't explain pain philosophically or even list its benefits. God says to Job, Job I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn't about you.
Job responds, even before his health and wealth are restored by saying, "All of this is too wonderful for me." Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health, or stability. he understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story than he did about himself. p. 197
But regardless how passionate the utopianists are, I simply don't believe we are going to be rescued. I don't believe an act of man will make things on earth perfect, and I don't believe God will intervene before I die, or for that matter before you die. I believe, instead, that we will go on longing for a resolution that will not come, not within life as we know it anyway.
If you think about it, an enormous amount of damage is created by the myth of utopia. There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be perfect if you only had such and such a car or such and such a spouse or job. We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status....
I saw a story on 60 minutes a few months ago about the happiest country in the world. It was Denmark. Ruling out financial status, physical health, and even social freedom...the single charasteristic of the Danes that allowed them such contentment was this: they had low expectations.
I'm not making that up. There is something in Denmark's culture that allows them to look at life realistically. They don't expect products to fulfill them or relationships to end all their problems. p. 201-202
Growing up in church we were taught that Jesus was the answer to all our problems. We were taught that there was a circle shaped hold in our heart and that we had tried to fill it with the square pegs of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; but only the circle peg of Jesus could fill our hole. I became a Christian based, in part, on this promise, but the hold never really went away. To be sure, I like Jesus, and I still follow him, but the idea that Jesus will make everything better is a lie....I think Jesus can make things better, but I don't think he is going to make things perfect. not here, and not now.
What I love about the true gospel of Jesus, though, is that it offers hope. Paul has hope our souls will be made complete...Paul says Jesus is the hope that will not disappoint. I find that comforting. That helps me get through the day, to be honest. It even makes me content somehow. Maybe that's what Paul meant when he said he'd learned the secret of contentment. p. 204
...as I continued to see a counselor, I realized that for years I'd thought of love as something that would complete me, make all my troubles go away. I worshipped at the altar of romantic completion...it's too much pressure to put on a person. I think that's why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate them and affirm them, and if they don't get that, they feel as though they're going to die. p. 204
....when I think back on those six weeks, what I really remember are the few times we made an extra effort to do something memorable. We took my dog Lucy for a hike and introduced her to her first waterfall. We took the kayaks out on the river and strapped them together to have a floating picnic. When we look back at our lives, what we will remember are the crazy things we did, the times we worked harder to make a day stand out. p. 209
I like those scenes in the Bible where God stops people and asks them to build an altar. You'd think He was making them do that for Himself, but I don't think God really gets much from looking at a pile of rocks. Instead, I think God wanted his people to build altars for their sake, something that would help them remember, something they could look back on and remember the time they were rescued, or they were given grace. p. 214
I hated that it took pain to open the curtain revealing the man's heart, but it did and it does. We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending. p. 223
...She did not want to let on that she was weak or the end was near. Her friend softly explained the need for a show of strength was over and that she should be fully present in the reality of her story and say good-bye. p. 224
...I wondered how much it costs to be rich in friends and how many years and stories and scenes it takes to make a rich life happen. You' can't build an end scene as beautiful as this by sitting on a couch, I thought to myself. p. 228
It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything. p. 231
It's interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a joy you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help. p. 246
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