Julie Clawson

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Stories That Mean Something

Posted on June 23, 2009July 11, 2025

So for the last month or so, Mike and I have been watching the Firefly DVDs. Now that we’ve seen them and the movie, we can now join in on the “what a fantastic show, what idiot cancelled something that good???” outcry. I like good stories – stories that go deeper than mere entertainment, that take the time to explore the human condition. Stories that ask questions and in doing so run up against the mysteries of the universe.

Of course, most of these good stories fall into the SciFi/Fantasy realm. There is something about that genre that allows for the unknown to be explored and tested. And there is something about those of us who are drawn to those stories that allow for them to be lengthy tales. Part of the magic in something like Lost for example is the convoluted drawn-out path the story has taken. Having cut our teeth on epic tales like Lord of the Rings or three part stories like Star Wars, we want worlds we can enter and stay for awhile. That’s why I think Deep Space Nine is my favorite Star Trek series – we got to see a continuing story of a community unfold. So it was sad to get caught up in the Firefly story and have it cut short before it even really began.

But it made me wonder why so many of us within the emerging church are caught-up in these sorts of stories. During the spring it seemed like every person on my twitter page was watching Lost as the mystery unfolded and deepened. I wonder if in part it is our affinity for these ever-developing stories that brought us to the emerging conversation in the first place. Too many faith communities act as if the story is over – as if the story of our faith was merely a static event of the past that holds no mystery or wonder for us now. That sort of story isn’t engaging or alive and can only be entered into in the most perfunctory of ways. But those of us who had an inking that there is some sort of epic tale unfolding around us and who believe that God in all his mystery is still at work in the world wanted to join our friends at a campfire and tell better stories. And we find ourselves watching together the good stories like Lost, or Firefly, or Lord of the Rings, or The Matrix because in them we see glimmers of the stories we want to affirm we are a part of. Or as Sam says in Lord of the Rings, “Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”

So what stories hold the mystery for you? What are the good stories you watch or read that go deeper than just entertainment?

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Julie Clawson

Julie Clawson
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Writer, mother, dreamer, storyteller...

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"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise." - Sylvia Plath

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