When we go to the movies or a concert or read a good book, we do it for one major reason: to enter the story. To stand aside and objectively scan the activity or presentation takes away much of the interest and all of the glory. No; we want to be temporarily transported, taken to another world, given a new set of wings. We want this because our life story is so bland or so tragic or so empty. We need other stories to live. To live well, we need another story working for us all the time.
In the hymnal at church - probably at most Christian churches – there is a song that ends “we want to enter the story.” At first, I was shocked when I saw this: does the church hierarchy really think that the whole Christ thing is just a story? Over the last few months, however, I have come to see those simple lyrics as not only an admission of the subjectivity of “being Christian,” but also a concise explanation for what any reality we live in is. All is a story. On one level, we of the overall ‘human story’ are born, eat, reproduce, get sick, and die. That is our one great story, one that it seems impossible to change or escape from. On another level, all our experience is channeled to a shared sense of meaning. For some, the meaning is competition, either with one’s expectations or with others. Did I graduate at a high level? Is my income better than average? Am I living an exciting life? Do I have a bigger and/or better family? And so on. This does not suffice for most in the end, where some will quickly resort to cultural homilies: did I help others in some way with my life? Did I create a family that cares about me and others? And for most at the very end, cosmic meaning begins to swirl. Where is my place in this? How can I really die?
We go to concerts and movies and such for stories to fill in the holes in our own personal stories. Many slip from one such mini- story to another, but until recently, almost all of humanity lived under a big, comprehensive story called religion. This was provided by wise elders, often from a distant past, to make sense of the whole shebang. Trouble is, all religions seek to direct the adherent to particular sorts of behavior – this is what a comprehensive story does (even our books and movies direct us towards certain behaviors). Western civilization at some point decided it wanted total freedom – within certain minimal social laws – and so rejected religion, so much so that Iceland today is basically religion-free, followed close behind by the Scandinavian nations, and behind them the rest of Western Europe. Trouble is, we need the big story. Trouble is, we now have unleashed upon the earth millions of mini-stories – the individuals from these nations – who are all trying to find their big story. In this, the ego reigns, and mediocrity, shallowness, and self-centeredness prevail. It is such that the West – as well as some other areas, notably Russia – scarcely bother to reproduce. Many are importing vast numbers of poorer people WITH a big story to fill in the actual, objective holes left by those whose story has left them so un-holy.
Lack of a whole, of a comprehensive story, then, has real-life objective repercussions. But it is much more than that. Going back to movies and concerts, most would agree with me that enjoyment of these things is much less if one holds back from full participation in these events. This, I think, is the real tragedy of lacking a Big Story: that life becomes flat, an objective series of stimulus-response episodes punctuated now and then by something like a romance or a movie. This is the inner gruel that we have settled for in exchange for certain types of freedoms that, really, were hardly prevented by the former Big Story and often were not that important after all.
But it is even more than that. The true Big Stories, religions that have passed the test of time and trial, serve to actually shape subjective, or spiritual, reality in ways that those who are not part of one of these Big Stories find it hard to comprehend – just as someone not part of, say, the Grateful Dead phenomena of the past could not understand the thrill and joy of the Dead Heads who followed the band. And even more: these Big Stories still are actually keys to another reality that not only can intercede in objective reality, but can transport one into another spiritual reality once the physical reality of the body is left behind.
It is really worth another blog to get into this more deeply (actually, it is worth a life to get into this, but we are a website here), and I will do that soon, but for now we can say that the founders of a Big Story – for my big story, the Jewish prophets, and then Jesus Christ – understood the nature of non-material reality and its practical effect. For instance, in the New Testament, again and again it is stated that prayer properly done can move mountains, just as faith can, the two coming together in the end as one (Father, I pray to do thy will). But that is only the beginning. Bigger still, there are keys to every Big Story that are capable of taking one from this universally-shared corporeal reality into another one, one that becomes a more complete reality than this corporeal reality because it is so big, so comprehensive that the entire physical plane is subsumed by the infinite spiritual realm.
I will come back to this some other time – that is, to the keys to that greater reality - but I leave the reader to think: what do the religions - those Great Religions of the civilized world, as well as the “myths” of the primitive world – promise? What is the formula(s) they use to deliver this promise? And finally, of all the religions, which “promise” would you most want, and why? For they work in formulas through their dogma (or myth), and through their rituals, speaking in a coded, special language that we cannot quite fathom but which touches that greater world and does, indeed, deliver.
In the hymnal at church - probably at most Christian churches – there is a song that ends “we want to enter the story.” At first, I was shocked when I saw this: does the church hierarchy really think that the whole Christ thing is just a story? Over the last few months, however, I have come to see those simple lyrics as not only an admission of the subjectivity of “being Christian,” but also a concise explanation for what any reality we live in is. All is a story. On one level, we of the overall ‘human story’ are born, eat, reproduce, get sick, and die. That is our one great story, one that it seems impossible to change or escape from. On another level, all our experience is channeled to a shared sense of meaning. For some, the meaning is competition, either with one’s expectations or with others. Did I graduate at a high level? Is my income better than average? Am I living an exciting life? Do I have a bigger and/or better family? And so on. This does not suffice for most in the end, where some will quickly resort to cultural homilies: did I help others in some way with my life? Did I create a family that cares about me and others? And for most at the very end, cosmic meaning begins to swirl. Where is my place in this? How can I really die?
We go to concerts and movies and such for stories to fill in the holes in our own personal stories. Many slip from one such mini- story to another, but until recently, almost all of humanity lived under a big, comprehensive story called religion. This was provided by wise elders, often from a distant past, to make sense of the whole shebang. Trouble is, all religions seek to direct the adherent to particular sorts of behavior – this is what a comprehensive story does (even our books and movies direct us towards certain behaviors). Western civilization at some point decided it wanted total freedom – within certain minimal social laws – and so rejected religion, so much so that Iceland today is basically religion-free, followed close behind by the Scandinavian nations, and behind them the rest of Western Europe. Trouble is, we need the big story. Trouble is, we now have unleashed upon the earth millions of mini-stories – the individuals from these nations – who are all trying to find their big story. In this, the ego reigns, and mediocrity, shallowness, and self-centeredness prevail. It is such that the West – as well as some other areas, notably Russia – scarcely bother to reproduce. Many are importing vast numbers of poorer people WITH a big story to fill in the actual, objective holes left by those whose story has left them so un-holy.
Lack of a whole, of a comprehensive story, then, has real-life objective repercussions. But it is much more than that. Going back to movies and concerts, most would agree with me that enjoyment of these things is much less if one holds back from full participation in these events. This, I think, is the real tragedy of lacking a Big Story: that life becomes flat, an objective series of stimulus-response episodes punctuated now and then by something like a romance or a movie. This is the inner gruel that we have settled for in exchange for certain types of freedoms that, really, were hardly prevented by the former Big Story and often were not that important after all.
But it is even more than that. The true Big Stories, religions that have passed the test of time and trial, serve to actually shape subjective, or spiritual, reality in ways that those who are not part of one of these Big Stories find it hard to comprehend – just as someone not part of, say, the Grateful Dead phenomena of the past could not understand the thrill and joy of the Dead Heads who followed the band. And even more: these Big Stories still are actually keys to another reality that not only can intercede in objective reality, but can transport one into another spiritual reality once the physical reality of the body is left behind.
It is really worth another blog to get into this more deeply (actually, it is worth a life to get into this, but we are a website here), and I will do that soon, but for now we can say that the founders of a Big Story – for my big story, the Jewish prophets, and then Jesus Christ – understood the nature of non-material reality and its practical effect. For instance, in the New Testament, again and again it is stated that prayer properly done can move mountains, just as faith can, the two coming together in the end as one (Father, I pray to do thy will). But that is only the beginning. Bigger still, there are keys to every Big Story that are capable of taking one from this universally-shared corporeal reality into another one, one that becomes a more complete reality than this corporeal reality because it is so big, so comprehensive that the entire physical plane is subsumed by the infinite spiritual realm.
I will come back to this some other time – that is, to the keys to that greater reality - but I leave the reader to think: what do the religions - those Great Religions of the civilized world, as well as the “myths” of the primitive world – promise? What is the formula(s) they use to deliver this promise? And finally, of all the religions, which “promise” would you most want, and why? For they work in formulas through their dogma (or myth), and through their rituals, speaking in a coded, special language that we cannot quite fathom but which touches that greater world and does, indeed, deliver.
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