The Healing Power of Story in a Pandemic
Last year, when we were a few months into full COVID lockdown, I found myself hungry for stories.
In Meyers Briggs terms, I'm an INFJ (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging). Stick with me, here. These thoughts are related.
I recently read an article about INFJs under extreme stress, and one of the things we tend to do when stressed is binge-watch.
Maybe it's the English major in me, but I like to think of life in terms of story. When things are tough, I find comfort in understanding the present season as a chapter in a larger narrative. And I love the idea of being one of so many characters in God's big story of redemption. But boy, when I got to the chapter titled "2020," I was ready to put this book down.
What in the world was happening in our country politically? How did we need to be shaped and changed by the tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd? How could we continue to weather the layers of challenges brought on by COVID-19? When would COVID be over? Who could you believe? Who could you trust? Who was in charge?
Frankly, 2020 was super unsatisfying as a storytelling exercise. It was such a long chapter, with lots of uncertainty, confusion, intellectual and emotional challenges, and a narrative thread that I just couldn't untangle. So many loose ends. So many nonsensical plot twists. So many unanswered questions. So many unreliable narrators.
So that's why I needed basic stories. I needed stories that could fill in what 2020 could not: community, clarity of purpose, meaningful suffering, real human connection, logical facts and sense, and of course, a satisfying ending.
I wanted to see small plots that resolved quickly. I wanted to watch people who were more likable and sympathetic than the characters on the news or social media, and who didn't demand much from me. I wanted to be able to experience a story as a whole, to recognize that things were going somewhere and for a good reason. I needed a compressed timeline. Something smaller. Something less grandiose and heavy. Something I could make sense of. This, rather than feeling stuck in the middle of a massive thousand-year story that has no end in sight. And I was so hungry for them, I found myself binge-watching, just as my INFJ profile had predicted I would. At any opportunity, I would metaphorically stuff my face with stories.
I felt like actual reading was even too demanding of me in the beginning, so I tended to watch two genres of shows while doing other things like folding laundry and cleaning up the kitchen (after all, even though I'm home all the time, I still find I don't have time for actually sitting down on the couch and reading or watching tv):
Dramadies I have already watched (<-- that part is important)The rerun dramadies and sit comes were Psych, Chuck, White Collar, Frasier, Friends. Obviously not high-brow entertainment. But still--I lapped them up. I've watched all those shows before. Why did I want to see them again? Because I knew they wouldn't require much of me, and I knew how they ended. I knew I could watch familiar characters I liked go through tough times, but the tough would make them stronger, and in the end, the community would prevail and love would conquer all. And they would make me laugh. I needed to laugh.
Oh, and those mysteries? Really an odd choice for me if it weren't COVID times. But I realized that episodes of Endeavor were helping me with my frustration at not being able to problem-solve. In a world with so many problems that don't have clear answers, my heart (and my brain) were strangely warmed by the process of unraveling a "who-dunnit," with the big reveal at the end that made sense of all the seemingly nonsensical elements that came before. Ah! The catharsis of logic and problem-solving using actual facts to find the capital-T-Truth in a world where there is Truth to be found.
Lately I've had more energy to read in spurts, and found myself drawn again into The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which I've been slowly reading through analog-style at the end of each day for the 20 minutes or so that I can still keep my eyes open. It's been wonderful to enter into the admittedly lengthy journey of the fellowship who set out to save the world with the slimmest chance of success. There is comfort in its lengthiness. Rome wasn't built in a day. The Ring wasn't destroyed in a week. This is a JOURNEY, people. Epic in scope and timing. And yet, so much of the story is just people walking, getting tired, talking, eating, resting, sleeping, getting up, fighting some Orcs, walking some more, talking some more, continuing on, day after day. A lot like getting through a pandemic (maybe without the Orcs).
Drawn into a battle they did not choose, these characters learn to rise to the occasion of their day, discovering that they, too, can be heroes. But so much of their heroism is rooted in their willingness to just keep going. Some mornings I think, if Frodo and Sam can climb Mount Doom with the weight of the Ring bearing down, not knowing how their journey would ultimately end, I can climb out of bed another day under the weight of a pandemic world, uncertain of how it will end, knowing my purpose for the day is just to put one foot in front of another.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Oh, Gandalf!
So that part about seeing the full scope of the story? After a year of wrestling with deep questions, I cling more tightly now than ever to the belief that this challenging plotline that we find ourselves in is going somewhere after all. For those who have eyes to see, Christ holds all things together, including the perplexing threads of our own tale, and with him as the author of our faith, we are promised the happiest of endings. All things will be renewed. All questions answered. All mysteries solved. All injustices righted.
Trusting in the goodness of that last chapter has helped me lay off the panic story consumption a bit. And it's given me the courage to poke my head up and look around with clear eyes at this part of the story and remember -- this is only one chapter.
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