We will be going to Medjugore this month, a town in Bosnia – Herzegovina (across from Italy on the Adriatic Sea), and have been boning up on the tremendous amount of literature and documentaries that have been done on this formerly small farming community. What put it on the map were six children, from ages 10 to 16, who claimed to have seen and talked with the Virgin Mary in 1981 in the nearby hills. This was during the communist era, and there was a big kerfuffle at the time between the state authorities and the children – as well as with some skeptical clerical authorities. But the children continued, grew up, and still continue to have visions and conversations to this day. While there is no longer any argument with the state authorities – it does not hurt that Medjugorje brings in big dollars - many clergy are still skeptical. Pope, now saint, John Paull II thought it was genuine and wonderful; Pope Francis thinks he might smell a rat. Officially, the original 7 visions have been proclaimed genuine; as of this writing, the jury is still out on the rest.
There will be much, much more on this in future blogs, but for now, I go back to one of the many videos that were made on Medjugorje. Done by Stella-Mar film studios, it revolves around several individuals from the US and England who have different issues and different levels of belief. The film crew takes them to Medjugorje and then films them as they pray (or look at others pray – two are atheists) and interact, to see what changes might take place. It is a fascinating documentary and totally honest – no one throws away his cane or is struck by lightning like St Paul on the road to Damascus. All, however, are changed, as the follow-up at the end shows. The greatest change occurs to a young woman, and mother of two small children, who was almost miraculously able to go despite late-stage terminal cancer. Her change was special: two weeks after returning from Medjugorje, the film crew was allowed to – really, called to - film her as she died.
To say it was intense is a gross understatement, and I was fortunate to have the cat bothering me on my lap to blunt an almost inevitable flow of tears. She died at home, amidst her friends who had first made a little party for her. In a scant two weeks, she had become skeletal, and was very obviously dying. After the little party, she was laid down in her bed as the priest did his final anointing. Her husband stood by holding one of his little daughters and they talked: “Is Mommy going to die now?” “Yes, in a few moments she will be going to heaven.” And there she was, grateful, hugging her friends and family one last time; and then she lay down and simply left. It was that fast.
The contrast in those few moments was striking. As she was dying, she became super-human in the sense that you could feel her spirit become great, perhaps because it was being met by the Holy Spirit. A sacred awe filled the house, readily palpable through the film in our own home. It was that undeniable. But immediately after she died, there was nothing. Her body became a mere sack of bones. Just like that, what was “her” had left.
Stunning. The makers of the documentary knew that this had happened when they put the film together, of course, giving sense to these lines first put out as the documentary began (my paraphrase): “Everyone you know or have known or will ever know will someday die.” And there it is, in words and in pictures; there in this documentary is the basis, the meat and bone of all genuine religions: death. Scary, painful and/or wonderful, it is always filled with awe and mystery. Thus it is that all honest religions have this awe and mystery near or at their core.
There are universals, or near-universals in religion, as my old anthropological studies bring back to mind. In the primitive religions (as usual, this is not meant to be disparaging. Rather, the word “primitive” comes from primal, or first, and is so meant here) there is always, or at least almost always, a major character in the religious myths identified by we who study them as The Trickster. He (he is almost always a “he”) has been made famous in America through the Western American Indian personification of the trickster as the coyote. The coyote is playful, deceitful, sometimes stupid, and often selfish. He will outsmart others, only to outsmart himself. He is at times satanic, and at other times the buffoon (bringing to mind Satan as he tries to trick Jesus in the desert, but I get ahead of myself). When the stories are told of him, people often laugh. In the end, when all is said and done, he is us.
This is at the heart of so many myths – in the end, we are all tricked by death, no matter how smart or cunning we are or have been, because death always takes us by surprise. It does not fit in our world. It is, from one perspective, the ultimate joke, for a joke makes us laugh because it is so against normal patterns and logic. So is death, but once at its edge, we are seldom amused. Our egos take it very seriously –which makes it the ultimate cosmic joke, as all good jokes have a fool in the middle who is unaware. That fool again, of course, is us.
And so, as we watch the documentary, we see everyone humbled by the “joke” of death. Arguments and logic and dogma no longer suffice. In the end, it is obvious: the great culmination of all our lives, of all our theologies, revolves around death. Here, both the atheist and the zealot are brought to their knees before the mystery.
In primitive religions, the shaman learns how to walk through the door created by this mystery. He uses the symbols of death as well as its reflection in life – the patterns and words and songs and rhythms that tumble from this mystery, put forth as gifts from the spirit (or spirits). These are his passwords to the spirit world, that world through which the spirit passes after it leaves the body. There he learns that he can manipulate things that are in its shadow – that is, our material reality. From there he sometimes can cure, can find the herds and other prey, and can curse and cause illness or even death in his enemy. There he looks for power and obtains it. There, he also might serve as the guide for the departed soul to let it pass into the good spiritual world that is imagined for that tribe or people – although seldom can he enter that final land, because he is still alive and a stranger to it.
The myth is an inside story. As Western civilization pushed into the worlds of the primitive, the shamans found, much to their surprise, that the new people, as well as their technologies, were rarely affected by their magic. The “others” were outside the story. How could that be? How could something that comes from the land of death affect one people but not another?
I do not pretend to understand the mystery to that depth (this involves the mystery of faith). Rather, I look to what most primitive religions are designed to do. They are not meant to cure all peoples, and they are certainly not meant to bring all peoples to heaven. In fact, they are designed more for manipulating the spirit world for their people here in this world. While the shaman may work as a psychopomp (link between the spirit world and this world) to deliver his people to heaven, that is rarely his primary function. This was also true for the people of the Old Testament, who had very amorphous and ambiguous ideas about heaven. Rather, they wanted health and power in this world, as with many today. At that time, this is what their religion was designed to do. That was “their story.” In this, as with many other religions, the story(ies) was, as some still are, effective in delivering supernatural changes and events. But is it what we want? Is this spiritual technology for health and fortune what we need most?
A look at the death of that woman, and the feeling that poured forth from that, even on film, tells me no. It tells me that another formula is necessary for solving the great mystery that seems beyond solving, the mystery at the root of all religions.
I leave it there for now, but I believe that many, probably most, of the pilgrims who go to Medjugorje are seeking the actuation of this formula. They think this might happen because that is what “their story” tells them. As with primitive spiritual stories, I do believe that this one also delivers what it most promises.
There will be much, much more on this in future blogs, but for now, I go back to one of the many videos that were made on Medjugorje. Done by Stella-Mar film studios, it revolves around several individuals from the US and England who have different issues and different levels of belief. The film crew takes them to Medjugorje and then films them as they pray (or look at others pray – two are atheists) and interact, to see what changes might take place. It is a fascinating documentary and totally honest – no one throws away his cane or is struck by lightning like St Paul on the road to Damascus. All, however, are changed, as the follow-up at the end shows. The greatest change occurs to a young woman, and mother of two small children, who was almost miraculously able to go despite late-stage terminal cancer. Her change was special: two weeks after returning from Medjugorje, the film crew was allowed to – really, called to - film her as she died.
To say it was intense is a gross understatement, and I was fortunate to have the cat bothering me on my lap to blunt an almost inevitable flow of tears. She died at home, amidst her friends who had first made a little party for her. In a scant two weeks, she had become skeletal, and was very obviously dying. After the little party, she was laid down in her bed as the priest did his final anointing. Her husband stood by holding one of his little daughters and they talked: “Is Mommy going to die now?” “Yes, in a few moments she will be going to heaven.” And there she was, grateful, hugging her friends and family one last time; and then she lay down and simply left. It was that fast.
The contrast in those few moments was striking. As she was dying, she became super-human in the sense that you could feel her spirit become great, perhaps because it was being met by the Holy Spirit. A sacred awe filled the house, readily palpable through the film in our own home. It was that undeniable. But immediately after she died, there was nothing. Her body became a mere sack of bones. Just like that, what was “her” had left.
Stunning. The makers of the documentary knew that this had happened when they put the film together, of course, giving sense to these lines first put out as the documentary began (my paraphrase): “Everyone you know or have known or will ever know will someday die.” And there it is, in words and in pictures; there in this documentary is the basis, the meat and bone of all genuine religions: death. Scary, painful and/or wonderful, it is always filled with awe and mystery. Thus it is that all honest religions have this awe and mystery near or at their core.
There are universals, or near-universals in religion, as my old anthropological studies bring back to mind. In the primitive religions (as usual, this is not meant to be disparaging. Rather, the word “primitive” comes from primal, or first, and is so meant here) there is always, or at least almost always, a major character in the religious myths identified by we who study them as The Trickster. He (he is almost always a “he”) has been made famous in America through the Western American Indian personification of the trickster as the coyote. The coyote is playful, deceitful, sometimes stupid, and often selfish. He will outsmart others, only to outsmart himself. He is at times satanic, and at other times the buffoon (bringing to mind Satan as he tries to trick Jesus in the desert, but I get ahead of myself). When the stories are told of him, people often laugh. In the end, when all is said and done, he is us.
This is at the heart of so many myths – in the end, we are all tricked by death, no matter how smart or cunning we are or have been, because death always takes us by surprise. It does not fit in our world. It is, from one perspective, the ultimate joke, for a joke makes us laugh because it is so against normal patterns and logic. So is death, but once at its edge, we are seldom amused. Our egos take it very seriously –which makes it the ultimate cosmic joke, as all good jokes have a fool in the middle who is unaware. That fool again, of course, is us.
And so, as we watch the documentary, we see everyone humbled by the “joke” of death. Arguments and logic and dogma no longer suffice. In the end, it is obvious: the great culmination of all our lives, of all our theologies, revolves around death. Here, both the atheist and the zealot are brought to their knees before the mystery.
In primitive religions, the shaman learns how to walk through the door created by this mystery. He uses the symbols of death as well as its reflection in life – the patterns and words and songs and rhythms that tumble from this mystery, put forth as gifts from the spirit (or spirits). These are his passwords to the spirit world, that world through which the spirit passes after it leaves the body. There he learns that he can manipulate things that are in its shadow – that is, our material reality. From there he sometimes can cure, can find the herds and other prey, and can curse and cause illness or even death in his enemy. There he looks for power and obtains it. There, he also might serve as the guide for the departed soul to let it pass into the good spiritual world that is imagined for that tribe or people – although seldom can he enter that final land, because he is still alive and a stranger to it.
The myth is an inside story. As Western civilization pushed into the worlds of the primitive, the shamans found, much to their surprise, that the new people, as well as their technologies, were rarely affected by their magic. The “others” were outside the story. How could that be? How could something that comes from the land of death affect one people but not another?
I do not pretend to understand the mystery to that depth (this involves the mystery of faith). Rather, I look to what most primitive religions are designed to do. They are not meant to cure all peoples, and they are certainly not meant to bring all peoples to heaven. In fact, they are designed more for manipulating the spirit world for their people here in this world. While the shaman may work as a psychopomp (link between the spirit world and this world) to deliver his people to heaven, that is rarely his primary function. This was also true for the people of the Old Testament, who had very amorphous and ambiguous ideas about heaven. Rather, they wanted health and power in this world, as with many today. At that time, this is what their religion was designed to do. That was “their story.” In this, as with many other religions, the story(ies) was, as some still are, effective in delivering supernatural changes and events. But is it what we want? Is this spiritual technology for health and fortune what we need most?
A look at the death of that woman, and the feeling that poured forth from that, even on film, tells me no. It tells me that another formula is necessary for solving the great mystery that seems beyond solving, the mystery at the root of all religions.
I leave it there for now, but I believe that many, probably most, of the pilgrims who go to Medjugorje are seeking the actuation of this formula. They think this might happen because that is what “their story” tells them. As with primitive spiritual stories, I do believe that this one also delivers what it most promises.
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