List Maker or Story Maker?

Eugene Peterson once said: "there are two basic ways in which you can live your life. You can live your life as a list-maker or you can live your life as a story-maker. The devil would like to make list-makers out of all of us. Jesus is a story-making Saviour."

Eugene Peterson goes on to say that you can make a pretty good and impressive list if you work hard at it, but ultimately it's a pretty dull life-- it's all list-making and there's nothing inside of it and there's no drama and there's no plot. It's like checking off boxes on a To-Do list (i.e. go to a good school, graduate, go to a good university, graduate, get a good job.....). Peterson says: "The Gospel, [on the other hand], pulls us into a story-making life where it is still made up of the same material and same stuff that the lists are made of, but now we are making stories."

And within the stories, there is plot, drama, meaning, love, salvation. And within the stories is the bigger story- -one of love and salvation-- a continuous story with ups and downs and drama and people and community and most of all, with romance. Each page, each paragraph, each chapter is carefully and lovingly written by GOD.

Looking back, I have been living life as a list-maker. There's no drama and no plot!

When I reflect on the lives of both our parents, they have so much more drama and plot then we could ever imagine. Jasmine's dad worked as a general manager in a textile factory in Africa. He lived in a compound with security guards with machine guns and with wild animals just steps away. My mom and dad gave up everything in China to come to Canada to start a new life. Both our parents have wonderful stories to tell-- stories about hunger, about living in small quarters, about Communism, about the cultural revolution, about survival, about working hard, about believing.

On Friday, December 23, 2011, I was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer-- stage 3. My wife Jasmine and I were turned upside down and our hearts were turned inside out from despair and anguish. Our plans to go back to Hong Kong for the Christmas holidays (another box to tick off the list) was cancelled. To us, it almost seemed that Christmas was cancelled.

But of course, it wasn't and that's a good thing. Life does not just revolve around me. Going through all the tests and being poked with needles every other day, I can see there are many others who are in the same boat as me and some who are suffering even more.

There's a new story being written or at least a new story that my eyes are starting to see. And it's an exciting story-- one that undoubtedly will be filled with plot, drama, love, community, GOD.

In many ways, I look at my cancer as what Eugene Peterson would call "square one"-- the moment in time where we obtain object permanence (a stage in an infant's development where he/she develops the notion that what you don't see doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist). In Christianity, we might be calling this "faith".

Through this experience, I am returning back to square one-- time to slow down and get back to God's word. I am being reset and renewed. A time to reflect on list-making or story-making.