I'm struggling to develop a presentation this week - a story to deliver at a conference next Tuesday that continues to elude me. I'm going through all the familiar steps. Gathering information, making notes, drawing connections...basically working toward some kind of "critical mass" that, hopefully sooner than later, culminates in an Ah-Ha moment...and then I can finally start.
With a firm deadline looming, its a bit scary. Though I'm confident (hopeful?) that it will shift into "exciting" at some point...today. The trick, for me, is always tied up with this idea of where to begin. I have a general sense of where I want to end up; of where I hope the audience is when I reach the end, but where does this story begin?
In any good story, the beginning comes as late as possible. That may not sound like your experience with stories, but you'll just have to trust me that its true (and feel free to test the theory with your personal favorites). An author may (should) have a healthy understanding of everything that has come before the start of the story, and often weaves into the tale revelations, flashbacks, and insights into the character's history and experience...but the actual start of the story adheres to a general literary rule that we shouldn't ever begin the beginning earlier than we must in order to effectively tell, well, a good story.
Its the same for my presentation. I have (and am accumulating) a large body of knowledge about my subject, and I have a great idea of what I hope to reveal to those who attend my talk, but I need to determine where and how to start -- to capture attention, to meet people "where they are" and, from there, take them where I hope to go.
In a bit of an intellectual leap, an old adage came to mind (inspiration or stall tactic, I can't know): "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Don't you hate that one? Maybe its only the triteness of it that bothers me. But I think its a bit deeper than that - it feels dismissive as well. Like something I would hear at the end of a 12 Step Meeting...something that inherently dismisses everything that has come before today and implies that I can and/or should start fresh.
I guess I don't hate it quite so much the way Paul phrases it in Philippians 3: "But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal..."
In fact, reading that, I'm forced to reconsider a bit.
Does Paul really want us to forget the past? Is he encouraging us to forget our previous failures so we won't feel disqualified from our current efforts? To forget our victories so we don't spend today's time in self congratulatory praise?
Or, is his encouragement more simply this: begin today's story today?
In the stories I've heard and in the time I've spent trying to understand my own story - the forensic study of a life in search of the fingerprints of God - I've found I can rely on one common arc: development. Development of gifts...development of character by suffering...development of faith. When I look back over the days that form my life, my story, I can see similar challenges surface and resurface...and I can see an ever-increasingness both to the hurdles in my life and to my ability to overcome them. I could not do in high school what I one day overcame in college. I could not achieve in college what I one day achieved later.
I could not do today what I am called to accomplish if it weren't for the struggles and development I experienced yesterday. And, I believe, there is One who understands the entire body of knowledge regarding my life, who knows exactly where the story will end.
In that context, it isn't entirely that I should wipe the slate clean or forget entirely what lies behind. Rather, perhaps, I can fully embrace, today, what has been developed in me through all my yesterdays -- crafted in and for me -- and simply...
begin the story.
