PICTURE: Kyle Maass (iStockphoto.com) "What is the narrative of the world we live in presently? Through the media, through images and words, thoughts and ideas, opinions and expressions, internet and email, newspapers and magazines we are constantly exposed to the stories of friends, family, politicians, celebrities, supermodels and so on. In fact we are exposed to more images and information than ever in our history. Are we celebrating this? Do we rejoice in living in a world that is getting smaller and hence easier to become a global community enriched by the different cultural histories that could be woven together to form a rich and wonderful planet? "Unfortunately the answer is no. Our world’s narrative has become one of fear and distrust, revenge and hate, a ‘bad’ world. Regretfully this narrative has become so strongly lodged with in our conscience that we now find it difficult to even contemplate a different way of thinking. The events of 9/11, the Sudan refugee crisis and Beslan all provide evidence to support this narrative. The bad news is that we cannot change the narrative of others. The good news is that we can begin to work on our own."

26th November, 2004

ADAM KELSALL

Recently I saw Batman standing at Buckingham Palace while a bald Robin worked the crowd. They were protesting for men’s rights in custody cases. Children need super heroes was their argument. I thought I like this because it makes me laugh.

The week before I read about the hostage situation in Beslan. I found out that while trying to escape one of the Chechen rebels who instigated the situation was kicked to death by local townspeople in less than a minute.

That made me scared of myself. I thought if I had a child who died in there I could easily have used my feet as weapons of death.

I saw a photo of Prince Charles and his boys Harry and William. The image was black and white but exuded colour and warmth. Smiles and laughter between three men united by DNA and the tragedy of a lost wife and mother. I wonder if they still talk about her? How do those boys handle growing up without their mum? This made me think of my family and yearn for the unity of a joke or a meal.

I received an e-mail from a friend who lives in America. His Australian mother-in-law, who he describes as ‘the religious type’, took him to an African–American church. He and his mother-in-law were the only white people in the church and he was bothered by his discomfort. He then realised his discomfort was racism and now he’s on a different journey.

There is a style of therapy called ‘narrative’. It proposes that separate experiences that occur in a person’s life build up over time to form a story or ‘narrative’ that they believe about themselves and their identity. Once formed it is consolidated by using future experiences as evidence to support this narrative and make it stronger in their minds, while discarding parts of the experience that could lead to a more complete view of the experience and themselves but fail to reinforce their narrative. An example of this is people who feel they are overweight and suddenly their jeans don’t fit any more. It could be that they shrunk in the dryer but this will be ignored in favour of the dominant narrative that they are overweight. The five comments a day about how good that new clothing looks will be ignored in favour of the one ‘gee that makes you look a little bigger’ comment.

What is the narrative of the world we live in presently? Through the media, through images and words, thoughts and ideas, opinions and expressions, internet and email, newspapers and magazines we are constantly exposed to the stories of friends, family, politicians, celebrities, supermodels and so on. In fact we are exposed to more images and information than ever in our history. Are we celebrating this? Do we rejoice in living in a world that is getting smaller and hence easier to become a global community enriched by the different cultural histories that could be woven together to form a rich and wonderful planet?

Unfortunately the answer is no. Our world’s narrative has become one of fear and distrust, revenge and hate, a ‘bad’ world. Regretfully this narrative has become so strongly lodged with in our conscience that we now find it difficult to even contemplate a different way of thinking. The events of 9/11, the Sudan refugee crisis and Beslan all provide evidence to support this narrative. The bad news is that we cannot change the narrative of others. The good news is that we can begin to work on our own.

A narrative therapist’s role is twofold. Primarily they aim to separate the person from the problem. The person is not an ‘alcoholic’, they are a person who has an alcohol problem. This empowers the individual by making them aware that their identity is not defined by the problem. They have an identity and they have a problem. Their whole being is not a problem.

Secondly a therapist listens to the stories of the experiences that have led to the narrative being formed. By retelling the stories and with the help of the therapist the individual can actually find evidence to deconstruct the untruths of the narrative and reconstruct it in a
way that reflects the experience for what it was, not the way it’s been interpreted.

I’ll use a quote to explain further: “Narrative therapists are interested in working with people to bring forth and thicken stories that do not support or sustain problems. As people begin to inhabit and live out the alternative stories, the results are beyond solving problems. Within the new stories, people live out new self images, new possibilities for relationships and new futures.”*

If the world is operating under the narrative of a ‘bad’ world then the experiences of terrorism, natural disasters, war and so on - despite mostly being entirely separate events - are pieced together like a jigsaw to form a picture that the world is a bad place. Sadly, if our narrative is of a bad world, then ultimately that becomes truth to us.

So we see it is important to deconstruct our narratives in order to reconstruct them in a more truthful way. I believe this truthful reconstruction can only take place with Christ as the head of our lives. Christ states: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. In search of a true narrative of this world, we need to pursue what I term a “Christ narrative”. A very painful process of deconstruction needs to take place in our lives. Why painful? Because what we believe to be the core of our existence, the reality of who we are - our identity - needs to be prayerfully put before Christ and held up against his word.

We need to ask questions like “God what are the untruths in my life?”; “God where have these untruths come from?”; “How can I deconstruct these untruths?”; and “How can I reconstruct with your truth God?”

The pain will come from the sacrificing or removal of parts of ourselves that we thought were fundamental to our being but to Christ perhaps mean nothing at all. Though there will be pain, there is an amazing promise Christ has made and we must steadfastly cling to. He said “I have come to set you free”.

Out of the pain will emerge two ‘aha’ moments. Firstly, that the only true narrative for us to live by is the one that God has created for our lives. We must seek this narrative daily through both simple and difficult decisions. Secondly, that our identity is to be found in the these truths, not in the lies the world gives us clothed the deceptive cloak of truth. Do not
let the world construct truth in your life, let Christ rule over you and reconstruct your identity in Him.

Finally, the process of being reconstructed is not an arrival point. As I have mentioned in a previous SightSeeing article, we never really arrive until we stand before God. While the world continues to feed us lies we must persevere in putting ourselves before Christ and seeking his narrative of truth.

* Freedman, J. & Coombs G. (1996) Shifting paradigms: From systems to stories. Narrative therapy: The social construction of preferred realities. Norton. New York.

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