How 26=27=28: Living in a world of multi-truth

It is clear to me that a very simple question exposes for us that we really do not live with one truth but with multi-truths. Not to bring the tone of the day down but here is the question: 

How many victims were there in the Newtown shooting? 

The answer? Depends on who you ask and they are all different and they are all partially correct.

How can that be? This should be a black and white issue. This is not a trick question and I am not trying to make light of this tragedy, but it is clear that the popular understanding is 26 victims. There were 20 children and 6 teachers. Others count the death of the shooters mother (Nancy) so that moves the count to 27. Still others count the death of the shooter (Adam) which makes for 28. 

Church bells rang 28 times marking the anniversary, but there are only 26 stars on the Newtown firehouse roof. There are those who argue the semantics of what a "victim" is and if Nancy was really an accessory because of her love of guns. Still others ask if you count a suicide as a victim and others want to make it clear that Adam's death should not be counted (and thus respected) the same way as the elementary children. 

All of this is tue. In a world where we want to believe that there is one clear Truth, perhaps the clearest Truth is there is a multi-Truth in the world. Where 26=27=28. 

If I can just step back from this emotional issue and ask this question: 

If the above question is unclear, then is it possible that there are other question that have multi-Truth even when we want to think there is only one Truth? 

G.K. Chesterton is sort of awesome. Google him.

My dear Church, a time is coming and is yet upon us that we will have to make decisions about the future of the United Methodist Church. It will be tempting to make declarations that assume there is one Truth on social issues to issues of Biblical authority. So I am asking us all to remember that you don't have to be wrong in order for me to be right and I don't have to be wrong in order for you to be right. The world is not a zero sum game. There are other creative solutions to the problems that face us.

The real question seems to be, not if there is one or multi-Truths, but do we have the prophetic and moral imagination to discern new and perhaps alternate ways forward? 

If you are reading this you are ahead of the internet

The internet is beginning to give some traction to the micro-giving that the internet used to deem impossible (Listen to or read this report). So if you are reading this blog, then you are ahead of the internet because a few months ago, this blog has been accepted as a content creator for the "CentUp" micro-giving project.

So you see, when you create a CentUp account, you not only get 100 free cents to share, but you also are ahead of the internet. You will be a trendsetter. You will be saying "no" to an ad based internet. You will, in a small way, be the change nudging the world into a more generous culture.

Are you willing to create an account with just $2 just to try it out? 

Stop telling stories as narratives

Storytelling is a deeply human experience. It is what binds us all together in our relationships and even though the ages. In this digital age we have feared the ancient art of storytelling will somehow lost as we now gather around our individual screens and "plug into the matrix". 

It is difficult to imagine a world where there are humans and no stories or storytellers. What is much easier to imagine is a world where humans tell stories as a narrative and thus, in some sense, loose the "art" of storytelling. 

Semantics aside, there is very real difference when you hear someone tell you a story and when you hear someone tell you a narrative. Narratives give us times and dates. They tell the sequence of events that happen. Narratives are what boring history teachers tell us in school. We are tested on narratives and narratives can be measured and assessed. Narratives can actually be quickly created and even distilled to a simple formula:

“Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.”

— The Pixar narrative formula

When we read a script there is a "narrator" part that is there to pull the story along, but as important as narration is to a story, the narrative is not the story. The story is something different. The story is the art, the discipline the practice of capturing people's imagination and immerse them into a reality they can experience with their senses.

If you want to hear storytelling at some of it's best, check out The Moth. If you want to experience narrative there is this classic narrative telling in the middle of a classic story:

Historically, preachers are storytellers. In my time being in the Church, I have experienced most preachers as narrators. We give dissertations on "orthodox" belief, give three points and a poem, talk about the history of the bible as a series of events, etc. Every now and again, preachers may use a story as an "illustration" or an "example, but the sermon itself is a narrative. Story is thought of as the sideshow to the main event of the sermon. 

One way to quickly assess if you are hearing a narrative or a story is by listening to the first line. If you hear something like, "My call to ministry began when I was at church camp at the age of seventeen." That is a narrative. Chances are the rest of what is shared will be a list of dates and events that happened on those dates, like a Sportscenter Top Ten. If you are hearing a glorified list, you are not hearing a story. That is narrative. 

However, if the opening line is something like, "I never felt I was called to ministry, until I experienced being so hungry I ate food from a dumpster." That is the makings of a story. 

I do not fear storytelling will vanish, I fear storytelling will be co-oped by narrative.