Savior's a Nuisance. . .

A savior's a nuisance to live with at home,

Stars often fall, heros go unsung,

And martyrs most certainly die too young.

(Joan Baez, "Winds of the Old Days")

What's the narrative of your life?  This was the question my counselor asked yesterday.  What's the narrative?  How do you make sense of it all?  What's the story line.  I recoiled at the question.

"That somehow, through all the suffering, through all the ups and downs, there might be some redemptive value to it all."  "No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."  (AA promises)  Wounded healer.  That others might somehow be helped by my sharing my story.

There is a significant burden to the compulsion to be a 'savior'.  And the quest for meaning and purpose in a life riddled with ups and downs is illusive.  "At least there was a redemptive purpose to Jesus suffering."  Its the search for a redemptive purpose that drives the hypo-manic phases of my life.  In spite of the "nuisance", there is this desire deep within me to change the world.  Perhaps it is born out of a sense of helplessness to change myself.  At least if some good comes out of it, then I can live with it.  A star is born, headlining my own drama.  A hero arises out of life's long suffering battles.  

But stars often fall, heros go unsung.  During times of depression I find myself overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of it all.  There is no purpose.  A life wasted.  It didn't have to be like this.  "Would it spoil some vast eternal plan, if I were a wealthy healthy man!"

Ah, but contentment takes the edge off of creativity.  "Were it not for depression we would never have had a Hemingway.  Of course, were it not for depression we might have had Hemingway a bit longer."  (comments of a colleague)  Perhaps its that tension between being a savior and meaningless suffering that is the catalyst for movement and purpose.  That I suppose is the narrative of my life.