Living Myth
Lately I've been exploring with my students (seniors in high school) the idea of the myth...the stories that give meaning to life. Joseph Campbell really got this idea going in popular culture in the 80's and recently John Elderidge has (strangely) introduced the idea into the Christian culture (I'm sure it could be argued that C.S. Lewis did that somewhat as well).

We all live by myths...both cultural and personal. Unfortunately, in Christian culture we have all but forsaken the idea of myth. As a matter of fact, it has become synonymous with nothing more than a fictional story. In a large section of American Christianity, one had better not dare to call the Christian story a mythical story for fear of being a herectic who says the whole thing is bunk. But a myth isn't just a true story, it's a truth story...it goes deeper than events to the meaning that we crave.

We all have stories that we tell to ourselves that give life purpose and meaning. Sometimes those stories are grounded in a common perception of reality and sometimes they are not...but always they are not the reality in itself but interpretations that make sense to us. Even our own memories of our childhood, high school, even last week are not memories of actual events, but our interpretations of those events. The stories we tell ourselves and others about those past events are not the events themselves. Psychologists doing a survey of people who had visited Disney World showed that 35% steadfastly believed that they had shaken the hands of Bugs Bunny while there...even though Bugs Bunny isn't a Disney character. Reality and memory isn't what it seems...it's our version.

In the past two years I have found that the vast majority of my students (whether religious or not) hold not just a belief in God, but a need for God to be real. When I asked them why, the top answer was always something along the lines of: "If God doesn't exist...if there's not something else out there, then none of this makes sense." They see an intrinisic connection between God and meaning. They almost need the meaning more than God, it's just that they can't find the meaning in and of themselves. One student was honest enough to say it just like that, "I believe in God because I need him to exist to make sense of things. Otherwise everything is too overwhelming."

So, in light of this emphasis on the need for meaning, the next question I posed to my students was, "What is your myth? What is the story you believe about yourself that gives you meaning?" Then, an interesting switch took place. These students so emphatic on meaning suddenly slipped into an apathy...a view that meaning couldn't be known. That purpose is always something "out there" or "in the future". I explained that they already had stories that gave meaning to their lives right now...whether it was the jock who believed he was a stud, or the girl who wanted to lose 15 more pounds...they all had stories or visions of who they are that gives them some sense of purpose and meaning. Which often led to great discussions about how these stories get created. It was also intereting to find that most of my students (again, seniors in high school) all feel that they are destined to do something great...or rather to do something greatly.

I suggested that perhaps we create these stories and in turn the stories create us. We tend to think that the events in our lives create us, but really it's the myth we create around those events that make us who we are. We live out the story we tell ourselves. For the Christian the key to spiritual and mental health is to somehow find an understanding of what God's story about us is and to align our story with that one. It's all very subjective, but maybe the subjective nature of it allows us to be co-creators with God of our very selves. And it's not just true for individuals, but for communities as well.

So, what is your myth? What is the story you tell and live about yourself?

posted by Jimmy at 6:08 PM | |