Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2

Recently, I had the privilege of working with Mark Baas, the founder and genius behind Baas Creative. Like me, Mark is a storyteller (albeit a much more experienced one).  While he was in Nashville, Mark taught me something about stories that I will never forget.

Have you ever heard of Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2?

Every story ever told has a Plot Point 1 and a Plot Point 2. In most feature-length films, Plot Point 1 happens at minute 30. It's the moment where a problem or conflict is introduced to the main character. To borrow words from Nashville author Adam Ross—Plot Point 1 is the moment that makes this day unlike any other day. It's the moment the main character "steps of the dime."

The rest of the movie (or book, or 5-minute film) is all focused on resolving that initial tension. But it's not so easy. There are barriers to resolving what has gone wrong. And there's backstory to deepen our limited understanding. And then, just when you think it can't get any worse...

Plot Point 2. Plot Point 2 is the moment where the barriers suddenly become mountains. What was a difficult challenge now seems an impossibility. There's a twist in the story and the main character may never actually make it back home, or to the end goal. It seems all hope is lost.

And then. There's resolution. The rest of the story, Mark explained, answers the questions posed by the original conflict. The problem that started all the way at the beginning.

Let's take The Sandlot, for example.

Plot Point One: The neighborhood boys invite Scotty Smalls to play baseball, but he is so terrible, it's embarrassing. His step-father won't teach him how to play, and it seems Smalls is destined to spend the summer isolated from any friends, and his life isolated from his step-father.

Barrier after Barrier and Backstory: There are days that are too hot to play baseball. A lost ball over the fence that requires the boys to pull together all their money to buy a new ball. There's some backstory about a monster dog next door. And there's this mystery about The Great Bambino...

Plot Point Two: Scotty Smalls hits his very first home run over the fence and into the yard with the monster-dog. But it just so happens it's the ball he stole from his step-father that is signed by Babe Ruth. Now it seems that even though Smalls is finally good at baseball... his step-father might KILL him—and the tension may never be resolved. Smalls may be forced to spend the rest of his life without a real father. All hope is lost.

Resolution: They finally get the ball back. Smalls is seen throwing a ball with his step-father, and he's actually good at it. He calls his step-father "dad."

Here's the thing.

If you look at every movie, book, or story you've ever read—it will have these elements. But I don't think it's just a coincidence, or some formula that some director or writer discovered some time ago. I think Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2 are wired in our DNA because we are in the midst of the greatest story ever told. And that story—our story—has plot points, too.

Plot Point 1 happened very near the beginning. Adam, the first man, stepped off the dime and turned his back on the God that created him. His Father. It seems he will never have a chance to resolve this relationship, because the chasm between God and man is just too wide. In fact, once Adam stepped off the dime—he wasn't even sure if God actually loved him anymore.

Barrier after Barrier after Barrier: God continually tries to attract his people's attention. He sends prophets. And judges. And kings. He establishes a law to open His peoples' eyes. There are sacrifices made to atone for sins, but they don't last. People turn to other gods, they build golden calves, they are exiled away from their land...

...and then... Plot Point 2: God comes to earth in the form of a Man—the second man. But just when everyone thinks Jesus has come to save God's people and establish a new kingdom, he is rounded up by the Jews and Romans and is brutally killed. It seems the tension may never be resolved. We all might have to spend the rest of eternity separated from our Father. In a miraculous, earth shaking moment in history, Jesus rises from the dead and appears to over 500 people. But then He's gone.

Resolution: This is where we are today. Beyond Plot Point 2. The story is not over. The curtain has not been drawn. And you don't have to read the Bible to know how the story will end. We will end up back with our Father because that is where it all began. He is on mission, and the story isn't on hold. We are moving, ever faster, toward the final scenes.

And I believe the end will be more satisfying than the beginning.

Keep the Old: Thoughts on Friendship.

When I was a girl scout for five seconds, I learned a song. It went something like this, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold..."   The gist? Don't forsake old friends for the new ones. But somehow, though I sang the song happily, and believed its sweet simple message—I think I forgot the words along the way. Over the years, it became easier to just move full steam ahead.

And if I lost touch with friends in the process? Surely, that is just part of life...

Or is it?

I don't think I'm the only one with this problem. This walking away and not looking back problem. This "I see what they're up to on Facebook, and surely that's enough" problem. This, "if they are really my friend, they won't care if we don't talk for three or six or thirty-six months" problem.

Over the past few weeks, I've had the privilege of reconnecting with a few close friends that I almost let slip away. And feeling the tears well up in my eyes, I realized how deeply and fully missed they were.

And my excuses no longer held water.

[EXCUSE NUMBER ONE.] We don't live near each other. 

This has always been my favorite excuse. After all, I was an Army Brat. I moved every two years, leaving behind friends, zip codes and area codes. No need to keep up with everyone. How could I possibly keep up with everyone? It would have been impossible to keep up with everyone. Plus—I thought—the ones that are true friends will be the kind I can just pick up with where I left off. The problem was... I rarely picked up where I left off.

[EXCUSE NUMBER TWO] Our lives are just so different.

This excuse usually follows the first. Not only do we live in different places—but our lives, emotionally, physically, spiritually.... are in different places. She's a mother, I'm not. I'm a teacher, she's not. At the heart of this excuse is a bout of pride and/or insecurity. There's no way she could ever understand what I'm going through. Or. There's no way I could ever understand what she's going through. 

But if you call those things what they are: lies — they no longer have power. Because the truth is... none of us are in the same place. If being in the same metaphysical "place" was a requirement for friendship—none of us would have friends, and all of us would stay stuck where we are.

[EXCUSE NUMBER THREE] I just don't have time to be friends with everyone. 

This excuse is the most dangerous–because the lie is wrapped in kernel of truth. Of course, it is impossible to be friends with everyone you ever meet for the rest of your life—and if I tried to be best friends with everyone, surely I would be a best friend to no one. However, when I look at how I spend my time, I know deep in my heart that I have more time that could be spent on others. When I look at my schedule, I'm often ashamed at how much time I'm always spending on myself.

[EXCUSE NUMBER FOUR] It's too late. 

Let's face it. Life gets in the way. Half of our time is spent working, and the other half is spent just trying to do the things we need to do to get by. Filling the car with gas. Picking up groceries. Taking care of your marriage, or your roommate, or the laundry. Life is demanding, and before you know it... six months, a year... three years have gone by since you last spoke with your friend. And we feed our guilt with this, the chief of lies: it's too late to change.

But it's not too late.

I don't think that writing a blog post about being a better friend is going to make me a better friend. But facing the facts, and calling excuses for what they are might just be the first step to change.

--

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." - C. S. Lewis

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The Day I Met Nelson Mandela

When I was a young girl, I met Nelson Mandela.

**This post was written before Nelson Mandela passed away, December 5th, 2013. To keep the integrity of the story, I've left it as I wrote it in June, when he was admitted into a South African hospital. May he rest in God's peace.

You may or may not know who he is, or that he's in the hospital in critical condition, and I don't blame you.There's a lot to keep up with in the news.

History, with its vast swaths of heroes and names to know and dates to remember, can be defeating. Add to that a deluge of social media, opinions, and the latest BuzzFeed article about the "23 things we all do but none of us will ever admit to," and it's a wonder any of us ever stop reading the internet for a minute. It's impossible to keep up.  Sometimes I have to just throw up my hands and say, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

When I was five years old, I had an excuse not to know the African man walking through the back door to the White House—I was five.

We were living in Virginia at the time—in Woodbridge to be exact. I don't remember what my house looked like. I don't remember my pre-school teachers or how I spent my time before I started kindergarten. But I remember meeting Nelson Mandela.

It was cold that day. Winter. I was red-faced and thirsty, but was told to hold my tongue because we were walking into the West Wing. In the days before September 11th—that was still possible—but only because we had a family friend on the inside, who was willing to give us a special private tour.

In the days before, we'd guessed and took bets on who we might run into in the halls of power. George Bush? The Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff, General Colin Powell? We're going to the West Wing, I remember my father saying, chances we'll see someone.

But we never guessed who it would be.

It was 1991—just months after the South African apartheid regime released Mandela from a prison cell where he'd spent 27 years in captivity.

Nelson Mandela was born in 1918, a son of the South African Thembu tribe. He spent his life bucking the system. He was expelled from college after joining a student protest. He was a fugitive from his tribe after refusing to accept an arranged marriage. In 1952, he and a friend, Oliver Tambo, established the first black law firm in South Africa, the same year he was first arrested for civil disobedience. He was a leading voice in the African National Congress (ANC), a man who stood up against radical racial injustice of his time, and refused to accept the white supremacy that reigned in terror during his early life.

Apartheid (racial segregation in South Africa) deprived black South Africans of citizenship, forced segregated housing, and extended well into the 1970s, 80s, and until 1990—all while Mandela was imprisoned.

Though he'd been arrested and released many times in his life, Mandela faced the death penalty in 1964, a little over a year after Martin Luther King penned his now-famous letter from Birmingham jail.

In the letter, King wrote, "I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

A year later, in front of a court threatening to end his life, Mandela said, “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He was sentenced to death-by-prison. A life sentence.

In 1990, the day after my third birthday, Mandela was released from prison. In 1991, Mandela was chosen as president of the ANC. And that year, with his second wife, Winnie on his arm, Nelson Mandela walked into the West Wing of the White House.

There, to his left, a small family sat waiting for their promised private tour. My parents sat, mouths agape, at the history that walked into their presence.

He turned to us, shook our hands, and looking right at my sister and me, Nelson Mandela spoke words to me, and to my sisters.

I remember what he said.

"You are a precious child." 

Three years later, in 1994, Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life. He voted for himself.  Through that election, He became South Africa's first democratically elected president.

Today, he is in critical condition in a South African hospital—his fourth hospital stay since December.

I get it. We are inundated with information. There is too much to read, too much to pay attention to, way too much to know and watch and see. But if you know anything. If you care about human rights. Justice. Character. The tides of history and the importance of a human soul...

You will know Nelson Mandela.

photo via. 

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A Deadly Dose of Nostalgia

Recently I've been writing the first few pages of my first book. And it hurts.

It hurts because it's hard. It hurts because the things I write today often don't read so well tomorrow. It hurts because most of the time it's so overwhelming I can't see straight. And it hurts because the subject matter I'm writing about sends me deep into the throws of nostalgia. The deadly kind.

The book I'm writing is about three women who attend West Point. And when I start thinking about West Point, traveling up there to do research, spending hours upon hours looking at photos of that place... it's hard not to get lost in it all. Lost in the memories of middle school and high school—and then just kind of lost.

It got me thinking... when you start thinking back, does it prevent you from moving forward?

This is West Point. My once home.

Nostalgia is this gut-wrenching feeling of wanting to be back in a place you once were with people you once knew or in a time you once had. The dictionary says nostalgia is "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period of place with happy personal associations." Right. So if nostalgia takes you to a happy place, why, so often, does it leave us in a state of utter depression?

I think it goes back to my thought life. Fostering a healthy thought life is the key to breaking the bonds of nostalgia. If I let my mind dwell in the past - my brain can conjure up memories (true and false) that can taint my enjoyment of the present.

Whatever is true. What is true is that I live in Nashville—the greatest city in the world with some of the greatest people I've ever met and some of the closest friends I've ever had.

Whatever is noble. What is noble is that I'm trying my hardest to live in the gifts I believe I've been given, to the glory of God, for better or worse.

Whatever is right. Whatever is pure. What's right and pure is knowing the ways God has blessed me here and now, today.

Whatever is lovely. What is lovely is looking in the mirror and feeling content with who I am now.

Whatever is admirable. What is admirable are the ways other people in my life are living for today and giving their lives away to others.

If anything is excellent or praiseworthy.  Think about such things. 

Philippians 4:8. 

Lord, help me. This hurts.

From Have-to to Get-to

The other day, I noticed something about how I was talking.

I was on a walk with a friend on the Greenway, and realized that nearly every time I opened my mouth, I was saying something about how I (or we) have to ... fill in the blank.

I have to go pick up my dry cleaning. We have to go to dinner with the Miller's tomorrow. I have to go to New York this week. We have to get together and do this again soon. We just have to.

What an innocent little guilty verb. After a little time passed, I stopped myself and said, "Let me rephrase that. I get to go to New York this week. I get to go pick up my dry cleaning today.... I get to finish three deadlines this afternoon."

But from have-to to get-to is no small distance—when it comes to the heart.

I first made the jump from have-to to get-to when it came to giving. In January, I was doing a whole lotta writing for a non-profit called I Like Giving, to help them compile some first-person stories for a book. (It's coming out this fall, so stay tuned for that!) Day after day, I was assigned to talk on the phone with men and women who were either the givers or receivers of some extraordinary generosity. People who had learned that they didn't HAVE TO give, they GET TO.

It was life changing. From that time, Patrick and I started keeping a little cash aside every month for "get to" giving. So when my sister suffered the tragic, groundshaking loss of her 17-week old baby Gabrielle while my mother was visiting Nashville, we had the money set aside to buy my mom a one-way ticket to New York. When a friend mentioned a specific piece of kitchen equipment she needed in order to follow her doctor's prescribed diet, we could actually buy it. Right there. On the spot. Mid conversation. The idea that we get to give revolutionized my perspective on generosity. It sounds like a no brainer. I wish it would have been.

But while I've learned to go from have-to to get-to in giving, I'm still working on in the other aspects of daily life. So... I get to do dishes, huh? Or... I get to make the bed? And how about when you get to re-write 4,000 words because you realize the first 4,000 were just rubbish. Really? Get to?

Yes. Get to.

It's radical.