You would never write it that way, because nobody would ever believe it.
I’ve heard variations of this statement over the years. Whenever I come across a story that seems too amazing to be true I say it in my head. Sometimes things just work out so perfectly they defy all odds; it’s as if someone were writing a script. God certainly works in the affairs of men and there are times it’s clear He has intervened, but not always. Sometimes the narrative gets flipped, and the story is hard to believe.
17 Aug 1805
When Sacagawea’s husband joined the Corps of Discovery expedition of the Louisiana Territory, they thought she might be able to assist with interpretation when they reached the Shoshone tribes. Sacagawea had been kidnapped by the Hidatsa tribe as a child and taken far from her Shoshone homelands. As the expedition traveled north, her importance rapidly dwarfed her husband’s and she became an integral part of the crew. The day finally came when Sacagawea sat across from the Shoshone Chief Cameahwait, tasked with facilitating a peace between her former tribe and the United States of America via Lewis and Clark. Something amazing occurred:
“…Glad of an opportunity of being able to converse more intelligibly, Sacagawea was sent for; she came into the tent, sat down, and was beginning to interpret, when in the person of Cameahwait she recognized her brother: She instantly jumped up and embraced him, throwing over him her blanket and weeping profusely: The chief was himself moved, though not to the same degree. After some conversation between them she resumed her seat, and attempted to interpret for us, but her new situation seemed to overpower her, and she was frequently interrupted by her tears.”
– Journals of Lewis and Clark
I write fiction, and I couldn’t have written it better.
In my storytelling I try to place characters within plausible situations because I don’t want the story to seem too fantastic. I want the drama to unfold in a realistic manner so that the moment something astonishing occurs, you believe it; you trust it could happen because everything up to that point could, as well. Most of my favorite stories are grounded in reality, but include situations where something truly special happens, and I’m filled with a childlike fascination that fantasies sometimes can come true. The odds don’t matter and the script isn’t limited by our lack of creativity.
And then there are the New England Patriots.
I am most decidedly not a Patriots fan. In fact, they’ve broken my heart many times and — like most of you — I’m pretty tired of seeing them in Superbowls. But there is no denying the fact that their story is exceptional; they’ve flipped the narrative. It just isn’t supposed to happen: a single team winning so many championships, a forty-one year old quarterback defying all the conventional wisdom and getting better with age, undrafted players dominating their all-star opponents. A hundred factors say what they have achieved is impossible, yet here they are again, playing in their ninth Superbowl. Nine. And before any of you have the audacity to claim God loves the Patriots, I offer up two things I can say with certainty about God: 1) He’s not concerned with babies sleeping through the night, and 2) He doesn’t care who wins the game. Trust me, or just ask Andy Dalton.
We live in a reliable world. There are any number of things we predict with a degree of certainty, like weather or a person’s reaction to certain stimuli. These things are a comfort to us; we need them to function, and to know there is order. It’s also true that we can call upon a creator who put that reliable world in motion and ask Him to intervene, to make the improbable — even impossible — occur. But sometimes we get to sit back and just watch, and shake our heads in wonder as the story plays out before our eyes. Amazing feats spark our imagination and we get excited about what we might get to see next if we continue believe, and reject the cynical realism of living in the likely. Because even when the Patriots defy the odds again and come back at the last minute to beat my team, I can appreciate the absurd. I never get tired of saying, Wow, did that just happen?