After being in the movies once again (yeah, the second time I watched Star Trek…) I started to think about how we narrate our own lives and to what stories we attach ourselves and which stories identify our life. Especially I started to ponder the scale of those stories and christians. You see, christians naturally attach themselves with the christian story, but the active scope of that story varies greatly.
Some christians station themselves high up in the grand scheme and ponder about the great works of God and how He is going to end this all and how we live in the end times and all that. They see the signs of God in every major disaster and say to themselves: “oh, how the world is still not believing, how wreched the world is.” They pray for nations, politics and big miracles. I call them “movie christians” since their view of christianity and the world is rather blockbuster-like. That view holds some great tension, an all knowing storyteller (the viewer) and everything is big!
The other view is of course the smaller view. Some christians station themselves lower, and are more like the “faithful gardener” -type. They don’t dwell in the grand scheme that much at all, but rather they live their lives quite in a small way, in the moment. Unlike the movie christians, which send christian rays everywhere signing their christianity, you cannot neccessarily tell, that these faithful gardeners are christians until you talk with them for quite a while. Their story of christianity is comprised of smaller encounters with God and people.
Now these stories are not mutually exclusive, and most christians have it both ways. But we tend to lean on the other and use it when the situation gets dire. Nor are either views inherently bad or good – or at least both views have their problems. But they do tend to change the way we view things and how we perceive this whole faith-thing -and how others perceive christianity and God through christians.
If you are a christian, which one are you?