The Middle Of Some Other Story

 One of the more interesting developments I have noted about myself as the years roll on is my increasing reluctance and indeed silence in the area of giving other people advice.

It was not always this way: raised on a steady diet of heroic fiction and having the ideals of Knight Errantry, it seemed like correct thing to do was to offer advice as well as assistance. And even as I continued on in life, the thought of "advising" seemed to make even more sense:  life experience, "short cuts" on learning how not do to things, etc.  

The rather remarkable thing I found was that I was apparently quite terrible at offering advice.  

This should not have surprised me all that much, I suppose:  my only other mode of advising, which was dating relationships, was also terrible. I had a record of something like - 2 in terms of giving solid dating advice, up to and including encouraging relationships that ended up in divorce.  Or sadness.  Pretty much in terms of dating and relationship wisdom, I had none.  Other than, perhaps "Silence is golden". 

My success at offering advice was not much better.  But what I had failed to appreciate was the fact that, really, I am simply coming in midway on everyone else's story.

The reality is that every one of us is in the midst of our own life's story.  That is a stunning thought when I consider it for a moment:  every day, something like 7 billion people are writing their biographies.  Most of us only see bits and pieces of those biographies based on our own interactions with them.  It is like seeing a two minute section of a two hour movie and somehow believing we understand the plot (Maybe we get lucky - like that two minute part being the destruction of the Death Star.  Most of the time, not so much).  

In some of those stories - the ones we are most involved in, like perhaps our spouses or children or family or best friends - we play the role of supporting character, someone who is not necessarily critical to the main story but very important.  In most of them, we have much less of a role:  we are "Red Shirt Security Guard #5" or "Villager with a cantaloupe".  We would react with surprise if, in a book or a movie, these characters suddenly pulled the protagonist over to their side of the street and started mapping things out for them in a way that only a major character would - in fact, we would likely consider it poor writing.

But what it does mean - and perhaps I have just realized this - is just because we are minor characters in the life stories of others does not mean we do not have advice to give or a role to play.  It more becomes a question of how we play that role.

In a great many books I have read - less movies, but only because I watch less movies - there is often a minor character that sticks out in our minds and we remember, perhaps long after we have forgotten the main plot or other characters, because something they said or did made a change to the trajectory of the main character or story.  It was not only what they said, it was that they said it at precisely the moment the character needed to hear it or acted just when the action needed to occur to change the outcome.  Their influence ultimately transcended their actual stature in the story itself.

It all comes down to timing, of course - not the character's timing, but the timing of the author or writer who is making the story.  The main character is ready to listen or act, the minor character says the words or takes the action - and suddenly, everything is different.

When the disciple is ready, it is said, the master will appear.  Or in this case, the advice will show up.

I do not worry nearly so much about the need to contribute advice or experience to someone else's life - I mean, I do still consider it an important thing and in many ways a repayment to all those who have done the same for me - but it is no longer a thing I actively seek out.  In my understanding, it is God as the ultimate writer of everyone's biography that sets those appointments. It is my job to simply be ready with the words or the actions when the situation truly presents itself, not when I perceive it "needs" to be done.

I do not know that I give much advice that way.  That said, when it happens people seem to benefit in ways I could not have foreseen when I was "forcing" the situation.  Perhaps it is coming to understand that the totality of most lives cannot be compressed into the short period of time we have with most people.  Or perhaps simply being humble enough to learn that I am only a minor character, not the main star, in everyone else's life but my own.

I suppose in that sense, "Red Shirt Security Guard #5"  has a certain ring to it.