The Stories We Tell About Ourselves
How we tell our stories influences how we feel about our life.
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The Stories We Tell About Ourselves
My friend Bill wears off-the-rack blue suits, works in finance, and sports a dad bod. There’s usually a smile on his face, he’s an attentive listener, and his laugh is contagious. And over three decades ago, Bill improbably, almost impossibly, got sober.
Bill tells the story of his recovery as a mercy narrative. In this respect it’s analogous to the story of blind Bartimaeus. God plays an essential role in the transformation that they both seek. Here’s what I mean.
Strain as they might, blind people cannot force their own eyes to see again. When Jesus came to town, Bartimaeus cried out to him for mercy: do for me what I cannot do for myself. And Jesus brought about the transformation that Bartimaeus yearned for. (Mark 10:46-52)
Bill’s story goes like this. Unemployed, friendless, and chronically ill, he slept in what the area’s locals contemptuously called Wino Park. As day broke, he would throw back a pint to stop the shakes and to ease his nausea. For the next few hours, he would panhandle to buy that day’s supply and the next day’s wakeup pint.
One morning Bill muttered something like, “God, I feel miserable. I need a drink.” A voice that he’s sure was not his own replied: “You don’t drink because you’re miserable. You’re miserable because you drink.” The world, and Bill’s own life, never looked quite the same to him again.
A new and improved Bill did not emerge instantly. He wanted to stop drinking and couldn’t. Not that he didn’t try. He did try. And he failed. Repeatedly. The lesson was unavoidable. He was powerless to bring about the transformation he wanted. His willpower was not up to the task of making him sober.
But instead of sinking into despair, Bill recognized that accepting his powerlessness was to take a step on an entirely new life path. The path of God’s transforming, sustaining mercy. So, he turned to a power beyond himself. A power greater than himself.
As Bill might put it, he shifted from being willful to being willing. Leaning on God’s help, he devoted himself to aligning his life with the divine order of things. Initially, this meant going to rehab. While there, Bill courageously faced the damage he had done to others and to himself. He humbly sought to make amends wherever and whenever possible without making things worse for the people he had injured.
For some people—even people who admire the changes that Bill has undergone—this sort of mercy narrative is off-putting. Here’s what one of my readers said about my own storytelling: “I was really engaged with your writing until you ruined it with all that Jesus stuff.” In other words, my own talk about transcendence and transformation resonated with her until I got all religious.
She preferred a different kind of narrative, one that is common in this secular age. Riffing on the theologian Andrew Root, I’ll call it the inner genius narrative. In these sorts of narratives, people find the transcendence and transformation they seek without any reference to God.
Consider how my unhappy reader might retell Bill’s story. For starters, the voice that he heard came from the depths of his own psyche, not from some supernatural beyond. His true self was shouting for recognition and acceptance. God did not do for Bill what Bill could not do for himself.
Instead, the power of self-revelation motivated and animated him to pursue and to attain the goals he most deeply desired. Propelled him toward expressing his True Self. So, he sought and got the therapeutic help he needed. But in the end the new life—the full-hearted life—he enjoyed was the work of his own self. Not the result of divine intervention.
The funny thing about the stories we tell about ourselves is that we haven’t gotten to the ending yet. We’re in the middle of the story while we’re telling it. So, how we tell the story of our lives actually affects the felt quality of our life. How we tell our story influences whether or not we will enjoy a full-hearted life. Whether or not we will have a life saturated with meaning, animated by purpose, and rich in joy. As for me, the mercy narrative is more likely to have a full-hearted life as its existential result.
You see, the inner genius narrative is in essence a personal achievement narrative. It rests upon my own power to produce, to perform. And therein lies its shortcoming. None of us is done yet, so there’s always this question: what have you achieved lately?
And to make matters worse, the world is moving so fast that we have to keep speeding up just to stay where we were yesterday. We’re keeping up, not getting ahead. As a result, the inner genius narrative makes us susceptible to what Root calls secular guilt: I know that I could always be more, produce more, achieve more, look better, be healthier, be more popular. I’m never enough, because I can always be more.
By contrast, the mercy narrative begins with admitting our powerlessness and our need for, our yearning for, a connection to a power greater than ourselves to become ourselves. Who we are, what we are, is not an achievement. It is a gift. A gift given freely by an unrelenting love.
The mercy narrative is a love story. In that story, we are the beloved because God is God. We do not have to achieve it. We cannot be robbed of it. That is my story. And I’m sticking to it.
A Full-Hearted Life
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Brandi Carlile, The Story
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Clergy Retreat, Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, November 11-15
Get Your Spirit in Shape Podcast, November 15
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Bishop Reynolds Forum5, St. Andrew’s, Sewanee, January 16, 202
Book Reading, Sewanee School of Theology, January 16, 2025 (available via livestream)
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Preacher and Speaker, Diocese of Louisiana Convention, 2025
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What’s Next at The Woodlands Podcast?
Bishop Mariann Budde on spiritual courage
The Rev. Pamela Dolan on God, creation, and gardening
Why I Believe in God (a faith and reason series)
An Advent/Christmas Series
Bishop Rob Hirschfeld on spirituality, wellness, and mental health (2025)
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Love this!: “The mercy narrative is a love story. In that story, we are the beloved because God is God. We do not have to achieve it. We cannot be robbed of it.“. I am SO grateful to have been called by God as a young child to be aware of the gifts he gives to us daily from the air we breathe, to the food we eat, to the bed we sleep in! My heart ,back then and to this day, is so overwhelmed and overflowing with the gratitude because it could have easily been another path I walked in my life. At 62 my eyes shed tears for the overwhelming love that God has for each of us—and Bill’s story is such an example…I’m so glad he heard that voice within him… my prayer and wish for everyone is that they would listen and hear him as Bill did. Beautiful story. 💜
So often, I encounter the word "beloved" in your writing. Each time I do, I am reminded of that sweet gift of my truest identity. Thank you. I am beloved; that's my mercy story.