Today's Marists 2024 Volume 8, Issue 2

Navigating Our Inner Narrative
A Journey Through
Reconciliation
by Erin Shern Paul, Theology Teacher, Marist School, Atlanta, Georgia (Marist School Class of 1992)
Way back in the 1990s, I took a class at Marist School called Outdoor
Ed. During the first part of the term I learned about backpacking
- culminating in a hike along part of the Appalachian Trail. In the
second part of the term I learned to canoe - with a partner - through
rapids on a river.
The beginning of the canoe unit was all classroom learning - how to
hold a paddle, basic knowledge of how rivers run and vocabulary
terms. The very first thing our teacher told us was that we would flip
our canoes and get wet. All of us. He told us our initial instinct would
be to blame our partner when this happened. When we end up in the
river, our inner narrative is to blame someone else.
This gifted teacher spent weeks teaching us how to change that inner
narrative - move from blame to self-evaluation. He challenged us
to ask ourselves ‘when you are standing in the river, what did I do to
cause this flip, and what can I do differently next time to avoid it?’ The
new narrative he wanted us to adopt was the following: first apologize
out loud and then say out loud, “I think I shifted my weight or I overcorrected
or I should have pulled the paddle up.”
Then, he offered this magic advice - he told us to say aloud, “we’ll do
better next time.” His message was simple - there was always hope,
do not get discouraged! He spent the first two weeks re-training
our minds so that when a canoe flipped, we would self-reflect
immediately rather than blame. It took some training!
My partner and I worked for weeks, practicing proper positions,
paddle placement and communication. The week of our trip to the
river, my partner got sick and had to cancel. I was told to canoe with
one of the teacher chaperones who “knew how to canoe.”
We spent the entire first morning of the trip in the river - flipping
more times than I can count. I would hop up out of the river -
apologizing, self-reflecting and vowing to be better. My teacher/
partner would just curse and grunt under his breath. We were both
miserable. We flipped more than any other canoe and were the ones
everyone had to wait on.
During the lunch break, I asked my teacher what I was doing wrong.
Certainly I thought that since I was the younger person, I was
messing the trip up and causing us to be in the river more than any
other canoe! He laughed at me and said, “You’re doing just fine, I’ll
get you another partner this afternoon.”
In the Parable of the Pardon of the Sinful Woman, Luke shares an
inner narrative of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36-50). In the parable
Jesus is at a dinner with Simon, and a sinful woman from the
neighborhood shows up. While many scripture scholars focus on
the interaction between Jesus and this woman, I have always been
moved by the inner narrative of Simon.
Simon did exactly what my Outdoor Ed teacher said we all do
instinctively – he blamed someone else. Simon first blames Jesus, “If
this man were a prophet, he would know this woman was a sinner.”
I wonder: What if Simon had witnessed the interaction between Jesus
and a sinful woman and simply offered an apology? What if he had
said, “Jesus, I should have offered you water for your feet, or I should
Environment conducive for a
Reconciliation service
(Photo: Brian Collier, Marist School)
Students from Marist School in Atlanta, GA
participate in a Reconciliation Prayer Service
(Photo: Brian Collier, Marist School)
20 Today’s Marists Magazine