And the most beautiful thing is that it teaches you without ever preaching. Authors of fiction books do not sit you down and say “Here are the ten most important lessons you need to take out of this book”. They give you a story and let you reckon with it in whichever way you want. They let you walk beside someone who makes mistakes, who tries to do better, who fails, who grows. You learn from reading fiction the same way you do in real life – without any guarantee that you are doing it right.
I read this quote somewhere in the murky abyss of social media and it caught my attention.
This is what I love about fiction. It refuses to preach. At least good fiction refuses to preach.
We all know when someone is preaching at us. Sometimes it can be really obvious and other times the tone is more subtle, but they are still telling us what to do, think or feel- because they believe they have the truth and you don’t. Preaching happens in various circumstances – family discussions, workplace interactions, conversations with friends. Recently I was sitting in a church service – a place that you would expect there to be preaching – and I felt preached at. The preacher was sharing his grief with us because he knew how much God loved us but the problem was that we simply could not grasp this love. He added that it was also difficult for even him to grasp the vast love of God. He pleaded that we might accept this love. He was earnest and it showed on his face, but ultimately I felt pressured. According to him, even though he didn’t know anything about me, I didn’t know God’s love, so I must confess my limitation and then accept that love and then all would be well.
There was no other option. The truth was as plain as the nose on my face and so were his words to us that morning.
How different is the path to truth and meaning through fiction! I love the famous quote by Albert Camus,
Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.
I wonder if this is why Jesus – that master storyteller – spoke through “lies”. Jesus spoke through made up stories or parables to create an opportunity for us to think about what truth is. Instead of moralising, giving people 10 steps to freedom or rules for living a good life, Jesus for the most part, told cryptic parables to the crowds that left them scratching their heads as they tried to work out the meaning. This was not a new invention, parables were embedded in Jewish culture as ways to create meaning through stories. And the stories didn’t have one interpretation, it was up to the person listening to apply the truth they heard to their lives.
In a book review of Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, by Amy-Jill Levine Stefan Reynold’s writes;
There are said to be 40 parables in the Gospels (Jesus in John’s Gospel uses imagery rather than parables). They occupy fully 35 percent of the first three Gospels, suggesting that the short story was the major and preferred teaching method of Jesus. But one of their most surprising features is that they are not about God. They are about weddings and banquets, family tensions, muggings, farmers sowing and reaping, and shrewd business dealings. God is mentioned in only one or two. Jesus, it seems, wants us to look closely at this world in all its contradictions to see how the Divine is still present.
Levine who is a rabbi and scholar, talks about the power that parables have to disturb and disrupt the status quo. I once heard her say that if you read or hear a parable and you think that you are the hero in that story, you’re probably not reading it right. The point of a parable is that through fiction, through story, the truth cuts to the heart of things leaving you not necessarily with the answer but perhaps with even more questions. You then have to decide how you will apply the truth you hear – how you will live.
I think this is close to the way that mystics in the Christian tradition operated – from a place of uncertainty, mystery and complexity. In the mystical tradition there is a freedom to choose truth according to the way an individual hears it. And then we live our lives based on that revelation. And we shouldn’t be surprised if that way reveals itself consistently as the way of love, humility and a bias towards the vulnerable and marginalised.
Good fiction does this kind of slow work on you. When was the last time you read a book – a work of fiction – and slowly but surely truth or meaning revealed itself; it crept up on you and you walked away transformed by its beauty? Or maybe you felt perplexed by more questions than answers? Regardless, it impacted you at a deep level. Did it make you live differently? Good stories can do that. They impact us profoundly and change our lives so that ultimately we become more human.
Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski, Mission Catalyst – Formation and Fresh Expressions, Uniting Mission and Education. Karina also blogs at An Ordinary Mystic.
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