Exposition

People are always saying you're the author of your own life, you write your destiny.

Yes and no.

Life is like a novel, life is a story, but if you were the author you'd know what was coming next. You'd know what course would get you from point A to point B. You'd be the one creating it. There would be no need for faith or trust or error, because if you knew everything--if you were writing your life--you'd know the end. You know what to avoid and what to strive for.

You're the author of your actions. You're the embodiment of a character. You are victim to traversing through a realm scripted by another and choosing and succeeding and falling as you may. You are lenient on exposition, exposition only the author can provide. You can convince yourself all you want that you know what's coming next, but how could you really?

This is not your novel. This is your chapter, your moment in a volume that will span the dawn of man to the demise of evil and beyond. Your part is as integral as the others, with regards to the furthering of the plot and the benefit of other characters. But fundamentally, you are all the same. You are all as unknowledgeable as the rest, you are all moving through space trying to pen something worthwhile of yourself.

But you can't.

Not without the author.



More or less I'm using a literary metaphor for God, if you missed it. To speak plainly, for I feel the inclination to do so, it occurred to me how little I know. I've been waiting. I've done what the author has hinted and I've stuck around; I've waited. This weekend I gleaned some information I'd been lacking for several weeks, information I rather considered vital, information that has brought me back to a state of peace or homeostasis. I was wondering over the idea of why it took so long for me to learn that, why those simple statements were spared from my ears for such a length of time.

And the word popped into my head: exposition.

In my acting class we're studying performance of monologues, and one thing the teacher keeps stressing is 'why now.' Why does this character need to say this now? People don't walk around telling their darkest secrets or spilling their hearts out or rampaging at a constant rate. There is something that has brought them to that moment. What brought it about? Why now?

I'm not the author here. I'm not the author and God doesn't take the monotonous path of foreshadowing in a Rowling-like fashion each pivotal moment of my life. He will answer me if I ask, He will extend a hand in help, but He is all knowing. He is Creator and Master, and He knows when to plant seeds and when to let truth bloom. He knows when 'wait' will suffice, and when exposition should be delivered.

How can I not trust this? How can I not trust that though I stumble in a whirlpool of menial things, my mind stretching far from the here and now, crafting ideals and hopes for puddles beyond my residence, how can I not trust He understands my story? How can I not trust He's mulled for centuries how to unravel my tale and deliver my potential. How can I deny Him the opportunity of instigating and witnessing so great a story unfold?

How can I deny the author the pleasure of allowing a character to fulfill her course and contribute to his novel as only she was meant to? How can I dare try to write something better?