How Stories Make You a Better Person

You should never read just for "enjoyment." Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick "hard books." Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god's sake, don't let me ever hear you say, "I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth." Fiction is the truth, fool! ~John Waters

The waters saw you, God,
   the waters saw you and writhed;
   the very depths were convulsed.
 The clouds poured down water,
   the heavens resounded with thunder;
   your arrows flashed back and forth.
 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
   your lightning lit up the world;
   the earth trembled and quaked.
 Your path led through the sea,
   your way through the mighty waters,
   though your footprints were not seen.

 You led your people like a flock
   by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalm 77:16-20)

The author of Psalm 77 understood very well the power of stories.  He writes in a  time of great despair, wondering if God has abandoned him.  The verses quoted above come after he makes a deliberate choice to recount the faithfulness of God in the past.  Retelling this story gives him enough hope and strength to press on through his moment of despair.

We do this all the time.  We are shaped by our experiences.  We can feel overwhelmed by the various struggles that arise in our lives, until a close friend is good enough to say, "Do you remember that time when you were sure you were going to fail, but you so admirably pressed on, and you succeeded?"  Or until we remind ourselves, "I've been here before.  I can do it again."

Often times, it's other people's stories that give us strength.  As the Psalmist shows us, remembering God's faithfulness can inspire us.  Similarly, a hero is someone whose story motivates us to make our own stories better.  Like people in extreme cold who share each other's body warmth, we are permitted to share in each other's stories, so that even when our own experiences and memories aren't sufficient, we are not doomed to utter self-reliance.  This is part of the in-built grace of existence.  When we make bad decisions, we don't have to be fated to increasingly bad character.  We can be rescued.

The beauty of fiction then is that great stories don't even have to have actually happened.  We have a trove of "experiences" that we can draw from, even where we lack personal experiences, and even where we lack real life heroes.  As long as we have access to these stories, we are never abandoned.  There's always something "out there," telling us, "You can do this."  "It's not impossible."  "This is the right thing to do."  "You have what it takes."

My favorite stories all serve this purpose for me.  For example, (at the risk of oversimplification), The Lord of the Rings is my bravery.  The Narnia books are my sense of wonder and awe.  Lost is my sense of the power and value of community.  The Catcher in the Rye is my compassion.  Harry Potter is my belief in sacrificial love.  The Gospels are my faith and hope in the victory of God over evil.  The list could go on.

Read.  Read books that matter.  Watch movies and TV shows that tell great stories.  Pure entertainment is fine on occasion, but challenge yourself to seek out the good stuff more often than you gobble up the lowball stuff.  Do it to make yourself a better person.