My writing coach, Jill Kelly, sent out this link to a post called “Kurt Vonnegut Explains Drama,” by musician Derek Sivers. He quotes a talk he heard by Kurt Vonnegut some time ago, about contrast we hear between the stories we are told, and the way life really is. Sivers says, “Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it’ll be told for a thousand years.” He quotes Vonnegut: “But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.”
It’s easy to get bored in life, and in ministry. Much of what we do is routine. Some people respond by sinking into depression, others by creating drama for themselves in their personal life or in the church. I wonder if another approach might be to pay closer attention to ourselves and to others, with genuine interest, to see what new things we might learn even from what we think we know so well.