Narrative and Forgiveness: the power of stories

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Narrative and Forgiveness the power of stories

• The power of stories

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We create stories

• And they create us
• We tell them, listen to them, are formed by them
• Stories have many uses
• they instruct, moralize, socialize, help us
  remember who and whose we are.

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The love of stories is universal
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Christians have a grand narrative

• We learn our stories together
• We confess what they mean to us
• We interpret them in light of our context
• We read our audiences
• We change them and they change us

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Example from the Old Testament

• The Exodus central story to Jews and Christians
• Adventure story, with enemies, journey, escape, a
  hero, special powers, lots of action
• Has been used in many ways through history e.g.
  by Jews wanting a homeland, by African Americans,
  in our liturgies

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A story of community and freedom
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The ultimate story

• One with ordinary people meeting
• extraordinary events
• God meeting us on the road
• God transforming us, through Christ
• A central plot and central roles
• Theme hope over despair, new being over
  stuckness.

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Central to all Gods work in Christ
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Narrative in philosophy

• Paul Ricoeur narrative as a form of
  self-interpretation (socially and culturally
  mediated self-definitions)
• All narrative identity contains both harmony and
  dissonance
• Narratives are both lived and told
• Narratives are both innovative and established

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Some helpful language from Ricoeur

• First naivetéenmeshment with the cultures
  symbols)
• Second naiveté (what is the original meaning of
  the symbol, in light of a critical distance from
  them?)
• Ontological naiveté (plain childishness and
  literalism)
• Pertinence and impertinence

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Ricoeur at 92
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Ricoeur

• Favored indirect hermeneutics
• Took a detour through structure
• Narrative as emplotment
• Both ethics and description important

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Ricoeur, con.

• Imitation of action rather than action itself
• Stressed plot over thought
• The thematic unity of life
• What sense of direction can we see in human life?

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Ricoeur, con

• Narratives contain both fact and fiction
• Narrative identity mediates between what is and
  what ought to be
• Narrative identity mediates between temporal
  poles

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Poles,con

• Selfhood without support of sameness (keeping
  ones word)
• Selfhood supported by sameness (character)

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Who is the I in narrative?

• Descartes I think, therefore I am
• Ricoeur not so simple!!
• Narrative identity is located between I and a
  rejection of I (the shattered cogito)

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Mediation of extremes in Ricours thought

• Harmony and dissonance
• Lived and told
• Innovation and sedimentation
• Fact and fiction
• The author and the reader
• Voluntary and involuntary
• Exalted and shattered

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Jurgen Habermas

• Communication theory of society
• Critiques bourgeois sociology and systems theory
  with story of linguistics
• Believes that the spiral of violence begins as a
  spiral of distorted communication
• International conflict needs uncoerced
  communication not armament
• Begins with the individual, not social

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• Crisis of modernity While critical reason made
  the public sphere possible, capitalism and its
  related sub-systems deformed that sphere and the
  lifewordl of the family and its networks of
  spontaneous association.

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Habermas

• Only by elucidating the linguistic aspect of the
  reproduction of social life can the images,
  plans, programs and organization of free society
  be realized without perpetrating explicit and
  implicit repressions. Boris Frankel

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Narrative in family therapy

• Discovered as a way to challenge assumptions
  and stuck patterns in relationships
• A post modern approach because it
  deconstructs what is socially constructed. (I
  kind of linguistic revolt)

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Narrative in family work

• Denies we all have one real Self that is
  knowable and capable of being mastered
• Against modern assumption that we all live in
  one world.

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Against a repair theory

• We cant fix people by isolating the causes of
  their distress
• We cant heal merely by understanding early
  insufficiencies and damage

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Origins of narrative

• Freud first to listen to peoples stories
• Michael While and David Epston Australian
  therapists who first used narrative with families
• Always done in a relational context
• Expansion today into narrative mediation
  (couples, institutions, congregations)

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A matter of dynamics over form

• Meaning over structure
• The specific over the general
• Respects each persons experiences

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Goals of narrative work

• 1. Externalize the problem
• 2. Reframe the situation
• 2. Disarm the conflict
• 3. Create some open space

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Goals, con.

• 4. Build momentum for changed relationships
• 5. Get unstuck
• 6. Note and label process

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Narrative techniques

• Change the language families and individuals use
  to discuss their problems
• 3. Increase detachment/distance and flexibility
  with regard to the problem
• 4. Co-construct a new story about the problem
• 5. Focus less on cause and more on impact (of the
  problem/s)

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Goals, con.

• 6. Replace problem-saturated descriptions with
  lighter, more hopeful language
• 7. Find exceptions and unique outcomes that
  contradict the old story
• 8. Help people re discover their own strengths
• 8. Replace enslavement with freedomhope for an
  Aha! moment

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Characteristics of new stories

• 1. More comic than melodramatic
• 2. Shades of gray replace black/white
• 3. More solidarity with others than self (giving
  over getting)
• 4. True grief replaces sentimentality
• 5. More assumption of responsibility
• 6. HOPEFUL does not mean having a definite
  object for that hope

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Narrative and forgiveness in the Bible

• From splitting to integration
• Hard-hearted vs. broken-hearted people
• Unrepentant and repentant hearers of the Word
• Self-trust vs. trust in God
• Self-righteousness vs. trust in Christs
  righteousness

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Biblical stories of repentance

• Intended to break the readers heart (e.g.
  Nathan with David).
• Always include a communal dimension
• And communal consequences
• Always credit God as ultimate author of the
  story human beings as co-authors
• Often include the sad, bad, and ugly before the
  joyful, good, and beautiful

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Narrative and forgiveness

• People are stuck and need help getting unstuck
• Changing focus from the bad guy to the state of
  things
• Means breaking the rules that have been handed
  to us in families, cultures, groups
• E.g. you cant be happy if Im not!

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Narrative and the perpetrator

• Nathan and David
• Hamlet The plays the thing, wherein well catch
  the conscious of the King!
• Hope for those perpetrators capable of change
  involves space to recognize oneself in a new way
• Doesn't work for all e.g. sociopaths

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An endless task

• Narrative is a dynamic aspect of life
• We are co-creators with the Holy Spirit as we
  re-write our stories
• We are attempting to match the grammar of our
  lives with Gods grammar, the plot with Gods
  plot
• We can laugh (because free and flexible) at our
  own foolish mistakes and trust that we are being
  made neweach day!