Tall Tales

Have you ever noticed how unrealistic so many movies are? I'm not just talking about fantasy movies, with magic and wizards and such, or sci-fi with spaceships and aliens. These stories acknodlege that they aren't realistic, even though they are as relevant to the real world as any general fiction or non-fiction. Yet even a lot of the stories that seem more 'plausible' and don't have many fantasy elements are very unrealistic.

We like to tell stories about big events, about things that are earth-shattering and require heroes to save the future for us. There is something in big stories, in tall tales, that speaks to our humanity and grabs our attention. We know our lives are small and have little significance in the grand scheme of things. Few of us get an opportinuty to shape the world. Yet the stories we tell are often about the big events that few of us have real contact with rather than the every-day reality of our lives. The blockbuster movies are not about the neighborhood but about the nation or the planet.

Doesn't it make sense, then, that God should speak to us through tall tales? There is much debate about the actual historicty of events such as the Exodus. Did they take place exactly as described in the Bible? Does it matter?

What matters is the story. Big stories get our attention and help us see beyond the small reality of every-day life that we live in. Tall tales ignite our minds and fuel our imaginations and inspire us to reach further than we could without them. Stories that wrap us up into something bigger than we can see make us want to be better than we are.

How often to children play out the events of a story they just heard? When I was in junior high, my friends and I divided the playground into the map of our favotire fantasy series, and replayed stories from the books or created our own. We learn through stories, through playing and participating in the landscape and characters.

God gave us a story and has invited us to come play in it like children (let the little children come to me). We don't need to analyze the story, we need to participate in it. We don't need to pick it apart to figure out what it means, we need to find our place in it.

How often did you want to open a story book and be able to dive straight into the pages, leave this world behind and stand beside your favorite characters in the flesh? We can do that, because the Bible story is playing out all around us every day. We just need to jump in and live the tall tale.