Intuitive Leadership Chapter One
"Rediscovering the Power of Story"
Keel brings up some really interesting points in this chapter. He begins by explaining how essential stories and narratives have been to his own life. "Stories shape and create identity" (32). They not only create individual identity, but they shape the identities of families, communities, and entire cultures. The Bible is absolutely FILLED with stories. Stories of murder, adultery, war, betrayal, but also stories of love, friendship, sacrifice, and some of "the craziest people you could ever imagine" (33). Basically, Keel says that stories aren't just a part of our faith, but they are a vital and essential part of our genetic code! Throughout the Bible, we begin to notice that particular words appear and reappear over and over again. One such word is the Hebrew zakar, which means "Remember! Do not forget!" Don't forget what? Don't forget these stories and above all, don't forget your identity as people of God that flows from these stories.
"In the world we inhabit today, we are scandalized by the story of particularity. We like a universal God, not a particular one." (36)
Keel says in our world today we are almost embarrassed by these stories. We set them aside for children and ignore them for any other age group. We are embarrassed (in our modern mindsets) by their particularity. Thus we strip them in search of universal truths that can be applied to anyone and everyone. We view the Bible as a handbook, a blueprint, an encyclopedia, a systematic theology textbook, but never as a collection of particular stories in which the confusing presence of a personal deity engages unpredictable people in astonishing and mundane ways over a long period of time.
The big problem Keel believes we have is that we don't know our story. In fact, we don't even think we have a story. And that lack of knowledge of our story IS the story of the modern western world! Several hundred years ago, we began to lose track of our story and begin focusing only on the future in an attempt to logically explain the question "why?" Enlightenment thinkers argued that the only impartial court of appeal is reason without tradition. Descartes is famous for his phrase "I think, therefore I am." That pretty much sums things up for this period. The rational, cognitive self is thought of as the starting point of reality and reality can only be accessed through thinking. Our story over the past hundreds of years is that we are independent, autonomous knowers objectively encountering the world in a rational way as we progress toward a bright future and away from a clouded and ignorant past. Keel claims that we, in a way, jettisoned story in favor of rational knowing and while those two do not have to be mutually exclusive, they seem to have become so.
Well, for better or for worse, the church in the west completely bought into these claims of modernity. "We mistook our contingent knowledge of God for God" (43). Our faith became domesticated and made in our own image. In the pursuit of things systematic, rational, objective, and universal we lost the particular, intuitive, imaginative, poetic, and creative. Here is the crucial part, though:
The big problem Keel believes we have is that we don't know our story. In fact, we don't even think we have a story. And that lack of knowledge of our story IS the story of the modern western world! Several hundred years ago, we began to lose track of our story and begin focusing only on the future in an attempt to logically explain the question "why?" Enlightenment thinkers argued that the only impartial court of appeal is reason without tradition. Descartes is famous for his phrase "I think, therefore I am." That pretty much sums things up for this period. The rational, cognitive self is thought of as the starting point of reality and reality can only be accessed through thinking. Our story over the past hundreds of years is that we are independent, autonomous knowers objectively encountering the world in a rational way as we progress toward a bright future and away from a clouded and ignorant past. Keel claims that we, in a way, jettisoned story in favor of rational knowing and while those two do not have to be mutually exclusive, they seem to have become so.
"When our confidence in God's revelation diminished, we replaced it with increasing confidence in our own ability to discover truth using our minds" (41).
Well, for better or for worse, the church in the west completely bought into these claims of modernity. "We mistook our contingent knowledge of God for God" (43). Our faith became domesticated and made in our own image. In the pursuit of things systematic, rational, objective, and universal we lost the particular, intuitive, imaginative, poetic, and creative. Here is the crucial part, though:
We no longer live in the world of modernity.
The world is changing, postmodernism is here, but it seems the church is in denial. We know something is going on around us but we don't know what it is, how we should feel about it, and what, if anything, we should do.
Here is my favorite part of this first chapter. Keel explains what kind of story he wants to tell in the book. it is a story of living in tension, not obsessively trying to resolve it. I think that is key. Just as I said in an earlier blog post here, maybe hope exists in tension. We are often so obsessed with resolving tension or conflict. But I find so much more hope, hope that what we are doing indeed DOES matter, in the hard times.
Thoughts on all of this?
Here is my favorite part of this first chapter. Keel explains what kind of story he wants to tell in the book. it is a story of living in tension, not obsessively trying to resolve it. I think that is key. Just as I said in an earlier blog post here, maybe hope exists in tension. We are often so obsessed with resolving tension or conflict. But I find so much more hope, hope that what we are doing indeed DOES matter, in the hard times.
Thoughts on all of this?
