01763 – What Does Our Framing Story Tell Us?
McLaren, Brian

If it [our framing story] tells us that the purpose of life is for individuals or nations to accumulate an abundance of possessions and to experience the maximum amount of pleasure during the maximum number of minutes of our short lives, then we will have little reason to manage our consumption. If our framing story tells us that we are in life-and-death competition with each other…then we will have little reason to seek reconciliation and collaboration and nonviolent resolutions to our conflicts…

But if our framing story tells us that we are free and responsible creatures in a creation made by a good, wise, and loving God, and that our Creator wants us to pursue virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another and all living creatures, and that our lives can have profound meaning if we align ourselves with God’s wisdom, character, and dreams for us…then our society will take a radically different direction, and our world will become a very different place.

from Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope

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