Breakfast with Pandora

Faith, untraditional

It was time, at last, to celebrate Ed's life.

Ed had struggled with sickness for a long time. Meredith, his wife, a friend and gifted writer, drew strength from the parish community. It was natural and appropriate that we come together to worship where they had married more than a decade ago.

Photo: Creation is good.

Earlier in the day, Meredith had asked us in her Facebook status to sing loudly: "We are going to Praise God for a life well-lived and give thanks for all the blessings God gave Ed and continues to give us all." We obliged her, throughout the many hymns she and her daughter chose for that day. One in particular stood out for me.

In the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, the hymn is number 400. The first line is "All creatures of our God and king," and the text is adapted from "The Canticle of the Sun," a poem by St. Francis. Here you can get an idea of how it sounds.

The verses ask all creation, both human beings and everything else, to praise God. The sun and moon, winds, clouds, fire, water, earth, even death is asked to praise God.

A verse, by way of example:

Great rushing winds and breezes soft, you clouds that ride the heavens aloft, O praise him, Alleluia! Fair rising morn, with praise rejoice, stars nightly shining, find a voice: O praise him, O praise him, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

(Note that this is the modern version, which I very much prefer to the older-- the link above to the tune will also show the older lyrics)

Long ago, other cultures surrounding Israel were instilling creation with many divinities-- divinities that inhabited, or were, the aspects of nature asked to praise God in this hymn.

The Israelites-- or at least the prophets who tried to keep them on track theologically-- were different. They believed that one God had control over all nature. This belief is winsomely demonstrated in the Psalms. For example,

You wrap yourself with light as with a cloak
and spread out the heavens like a curtain.
You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters above;
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds your messengers
and flames of fire your servants.

Psalm 104, verses 2-4, Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, 1979

This imagery would be familiar to any culture that had a storm god-- the idea, for example, that the god makes the clouds his chariot or that he rides on the wings of the wind, or that wind could be a messenger.

The writer of the psalm, however, makes clear that God made all of this, not just that God uses it. And that, echoing the first chapter of the Hebrew Bible, God is creator of it and solely in control of all of it, unlike in other mythologies, where a community of divinities has separate provinces and powers:

O LORD, how manifold are your works!
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Psalm 104, verse 25.

When I began to study mythology, I wondered if it was "Christian enough." What has studying ancient religions and stories that my faith clearly labeled as false, to do with an authentic life lived for God?

Everything, it turns out. For as I see and show to others how human beings are prone to make up stories and divinities, I see starkly (and attempt to show others) the contrast in how un-made-up my own faith seems.

During the reception afterwards, I saw many friends I'd lost touch with, including a young woman and university student whom I'd known as a shining-faced toddler once upon a time. She was happy, humbly confident, and gave the best analysis I've ever heard of what is happening psychologically in 13-year old girls' lives. She was majoring in philosophy, she said, and no longer attended church, though she reported one person in her life kept telling her to go, "just in case."

We laughed at that, and I remembered how difficult it is for us to break free of the idea that God is a man with a white beard on a throne, keeping a ledger of the good and the bad, in order to make a thumbs-up-or-down decision later on.

This is traditional, pagan thought. The memorial service was not. It was just the opposite of it. In the face of grief and loss, we sang, and never worried about ledgers. As the preacher in the service reminded us, that's what Jesus came into the world at Christmas to do: throw away ledgers. We keep trying to put them back in, but at its core, the faith of Christmas and Easter is that ultimately it doesn't matter what we do-- it matters what Christ has already done.

I wish you and yours the merriest of Christmases and a blessed New Year, whether you go to church or not. And farewell, Ed. May you go from strength to strength in God's service.

Our current NT (no-tales) nation

 If George Will has taken President Obama to task for using a "superfluous" adjective, things must have taken a turn for the better in the old U.S. of A.

Photo: What popular stories are we spinning nowadays?

In his column today, Will took a few shots at Obama's rhetoric in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, contending, among other things, that the use of the word "definitive" in the phrase "definitive solution" is unnecessary.

Obama said, "I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."

If there is anything that does not have a definitive solution, it would be the problems of war. We may be able to bring about a partial solution, an interim solution, or a false solution, but not a definitive one. The modifier is accurately placed.

What drove Will to take such an iffy shot at the president, especially after the columnist spent eight years shutting up about the rhetorical shortcomings of Obama's predecessor?

I think Will is secretly overjoyed at the opportunity, finally, to parse presidential grammar. He is having fun again.

This is not good news for mythologists. Last year I said that we were coming to the end of an administration that made myths rampantly-- circulated stories for public consumption that they intended for all of us to repeat and believe-- and that the new time would be more based in reality.

It has been. Obama has spent much of his time just trying to get things done. Whether you agree or disagree with the policy, there's no doubt it's been policy he's concentrated on, not tales.

This has not stopped conservative media from attempting to circulate a story that Obama is a totalitarian and we are becoming a socialist nation. But the failure of health care reform has not allowed that to gain much traction nationwide. In fact, Obama's own actions and the actions of those around him undermine myth creation.

Witness the Nobel Peace Prize selection process. The Nobel committee clearly acted in a political fashion, perhaps thinking they could enhance the president's personal myth. In reality, it was embarrassing for the president to receive this honor before he had achieved anything in the realm of international peacemaking.

The speech was the opposite of an opportunity to enhance his cult of personality, to make himself into a larger-than-life figure. It was just another reminder that people and institutions do things for political reasons. His speech reflected that.

Obama is not interested in making himself larger than life. His mission is more boring than that: get some things done for the nation that will make things better. It's true, as Will points out, Obama's policies skew towards things that conservatives don't agree with-- although they have reason to cheer at his Afghanistan policy.

But we are looking, as things stand now, at an extended "NT" national life. NT, as in the Myers-Briggs designation of an "INtuitive-Thinking" personality that is interested mostly in figuring out definitive solutions to stubborn problems-- through planning, studying, implementing, and keeping one's eyes fixed on an ideal.

Maybe that will help the socialism myth, but at a maximum, only for half the nation.

Bad news for the mythmakers. Hopefully, good news for the nation.

My turn as an expert in the Times of London, plus my old op-ed

Jacqui Goddard's story in the Times of London interprets Tiger Woods' fall from grace for an international audience.

I was honored to be able to contribute to the piece through my recent op-ed and an interview with Jacqui.

I am especially gratified to illuminate American popular culture in this way on a larger stage, as I've been trying to get my Latin students to buy into the idea that myth is not ancient and faraway but immediate and relevant to our lives. They are a much tougher audience than newspaper readers, I find.

I've now written twice for the local daily on the topic of Tiger Woods as an American hero. Below is the text of my opinion article published on April 17, 1997, after he won the Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia for the first time.

At the time I was pretty sure I would be soon the author of a best-selling book using Greek mythology to illuminate American stories. Silly me-- I was young and had no rejection slips under my belt. But it shows that I've been thinking the same thing for quite a while now, and I still believe in the basic message.

A Classic champion; a modern challenge

In time a man arrived,
with two awesome spears in his hand
and wearing Magnesian hunting garb
wrapped about his powerful limbs...
He went straight on,
exulting in his dauntless spirit,
and stood in the market place
where the crowd milled and thronged.
They knew him not,
but said one to another, marveling:
"He wouldn't be Apollo-- or do you
think he is?
No, nor is he Ares, driver of the bronze
chariot.

(translation Frank Nisetich)

These words, performed for the first time nearly 2,500 years ago, describe the coming of a new and a grand champion of Greek mythology: Jason, who with his team, the Argonauts, won the Myth League "pennant" of 1000 BC: the Golden Fleece.

With appropriate updating-- golf clubs for spears, designer golf clothing for cap and "Magnesian hunting garb"-- the words could have been spoken of our new champion, Tiger Woods.

"He couldn't be as good as Nicklaus-- or do you think he is?

No, nor is he up to Palmer, driver of the little white ball."

Tiger Woods is, of course, a real person, not a hero of myth; that's the difference between him and Jason.

Perhaps. But the difference may be less apparent than it first seems. Pindar, the writer of those ancient words, didn't put much stock in the difference between myth and history. Jason had been a real person-- he had just lived a long time ago, in the good old days.

There was no effective difference between him and the contemporary athletic victors Pindar celebrated, except that Jason's story had been told and embellished for a longer time.

Pindar was right, as far as I'm concerned. Heroes, be they historical or mythological, render the same service to us, the ordinary people who enjoy the heroes' stories: they confirm to us that what we already believe, and hold dear, is true-- true in the truest, deepest sense, truer than any local proof could prove true. 

We did not celebrate Tiger Woods this past weekend solely for his tremendous athletic achievement. Champions there are by the thousands, and moments there are kind and cruel to every athlete who strives. We celebrated Tiger Woods because he embodies the ethos of America, a unique doctrine that we believe has made us the greatest nation in the world.

This ethos, optimistic, full of hope, utopian, drives us on every day despite discouragement and cynicism.

Because of this unique worldview, we love the exuberance of youth and wisdom of maturity; we love a great underdog and an unflappable, pitiless champion; we love a humble winner who plays for fun, and has as his mission helping others, bridging gaps, providing opportunity, opening dialogues. We love a hero pure in intention, consistent in action, miraculous in achievement.

Tiger Woods is all these things, has these virtues and more. As his story unfolds, he reaffirms to Americans that there is no reason to doubt ourselves. Despite flawed politicians, greedy corporations, chronic racial tension, everyday injustices, the ideal that is America stands straight and tall in the person of Tiger Woods.

A heavy burden to shoulder for such a young champion. And Tiger's story is still so new. May he prosper, as he already has. The rest of us have a different challenge to face.

The almighty box that brought us Tiger's story, the video tube that replaced Pindar's poetry, is not vitally interested in building the kind of utopian America that Tiger represents.

It may have this as a goal, but only as a peripheral one. The main interest of televised entertainment is to get us to watch it and to buy the clothes and golf balls and everything else that it is selling. And Tiger Woods is their more or less willing accomplice.

Here is our challenge. Just because a heroic, dark-skinned champion is driving a small white ball into a cup that had been reserved not so long ago for light-skinned competitors only, we should not be lulled into thinking that all we need to do to make real the ideal of Tiger's America is to watch him on television and buy his Greek goddess of victory brand clothing.

He is a great inspiration, and if you hear him speak, you will hear the challenge ringing out in his own words. But if all we do is listen to the challenge, and do not act, we are negating the truth of the very ideal we believe in so dearly.

Tiger Woods op-ed published

My opinion piece on Tiger from an ancient Greek perspective is up on our local newspaper's website. Tell me what you think.

Maybe Harvard isn't the whole world (not mythology)

A Facebook friend posted this video, which I loved (Thanks to Sean for the link). It summarizes a psychological experiment that suggests people are not observant.

Maybe, maybe not.

In a classic fake-out move, the experiment is hidden in the process of agreeing to do the experiment. The subjects come up to a counter with a sign that says, "Experiment," and are given a consent form by an ordinary-looking young man behind the counter. At a certain point in the process, the young man behind the counter ducks down, and another young man, who has been hiding, pops up. Apparently, 75 percent of subjects do not notice that the two men have switched places, even though they clearly are different people.

The lead psychologist in the experiment has no definitive theory as to why people are so unobservant, but suggests the possibility that it may be "coincidence." People may "just happen to be paying attention" to, say, the "color" of the young man's shirt, or not.

This conclusion seems disingenuous in the extreme, especially for a university researcher. Makes me wonder whether the video itself is a psychology experiment. If so, I've been hooked.

To me, the conclusion is pretty simple. It's about Harvard, where the experiment took place, and the type of person that hangs around Harvard and participates in experiments.

I would venture to say that 75 percent of the people around Harvard are INTJ's or at least NT's. These are introverted, intuitive, thinking types, the people with their brains occupied with more important things than the color of someone's shirt-- or the sound of their voice, for that matter.

NT's are oblivious of sense perception, don't like people, and certainly have no use for irrelevant functionaries who shove consent forms under their noses. They are too busy being smart enough to get into Harvard.

To be fair, it's not just Harvard. I experienced a similar phenomenon at my university when I had a job as a dining hall server. Most of the students coming down the line kept their eyes on their food choices, grunted, and pointed. They wouldn't have been able to tell if I'd switched with someone else, either.

But I'd be willing to bet money that if you sampled ordinary working people-- that group filled with "S" types, or those who prefer to concentrate on their senses and the here and now, and "E" types, extroverts, who can't live without interacting with people, you'd get a big group who would notice the switch.

I think I would notice, but because I am an "F" type, a feeler, and I'm constantly worried about what others think of me. I constantly "read" people to see if they are okay with me-- strangers especially.

What do you think? Would you notice? And why? Time waste with me-- the best is yet to be.

Why I watch golf on TV

 Now that my weekends are often spoken for, I watch a lot less golf on TV than I used to.

Is it better? It must be, though a small (no, make that microscopic, my dear) and wistful place in my heart sighs a sigh of longing.

Lincoln Park golf course, San Francisco, a nice place to play.

I played golf as a teen, with my father and older brother, with a few clubs from Goodwill and nary a greens fee. We just played a few holes during off times, never held up others, always replaced our divots.

Every form of competition was gold to me in those days. Baseball, basketball, football, hockey, tennis, Monopoly-- we played it. I never was good at golf, but I loved to compete.

My brother continued on with it and is a low handicapper with a yen hone his iron play mid-week, to the dismay of his wife.

The residue of my relationship with golf is an appreciation of the game on TV. To an outsider, the experience is worse than maddening: what could be the appeal of such repetitive, boring activity?

And to an extrovert that has to be chattering all the time, watching someone quietly watch a game where spectators must be quiet while the players silently go about their business in the slowest of fashions-- well, it must be torture.

But this is meditation in pure form, and beauty. It is the turning off of the mind, to enter into a world of deep green and sky blue, mediated by a sphere of white. So very Zen.

The fact that there is competition makes it all the better, and a delicious paradox. It's not just meditation for the sake of giving up all desires. Golf is desire. So you are totally quiet and contemplative, and yet totally full of adrenaline and expectation.

It's a big, silly, metaphysical waste of time is what it is.

Ah, well.

And now, the best player of all time, who always made the game a pleasure to watch, has been exposed as something similar to most famous athletes and politicians. We thought he was perfect because he played as meticulously close to perfect as he could. But we know, as the Greeks knew, that those who soar high always find themselves smashed to the ground.

It isn't a surprise to me, in other words.

In fact, I wrote an op-ed about it in 1997-- how it was going to be very difficult for him to remain the paragon of the American ethos we all wanted him to be after becoming the first African-American and the youngest to win the Masters, that prestigious event held at a segregated country club.

I've currently submitted another op-ed and if it gets accepted, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I will spend time with my beloved. Because golf is not important.

Word of the day: quirkmuffin

 By way of the blog "Dealbreakers," which is a grown-up and very funny take on what makes  people "undateable," this post on a word I'd never heard before and which-- today, at least-- came up with only  646 hits on Google.

Pancakes with Pandora.

A quirkmuffin, apparently, is that "adorable female lead from your favorite quirky movie" (such as Natalie Portman or Zooey Deschanel) who would be an obnoxious maniac in real life.

Also an ENFP.

By the way, hands down Natalie Portman's best (really rough and grown-up) role was in Cold Mountain.

Thanks to Drew for the Dealbreaker link.

*

Also, watch this trailer and, if you are in your thirties or forties, try to resist going to see this movie. Hint: Tina Fey and Steve Carell. Sad that we have to wait till April to resist fully.

*

Finally, there must be some of you out there who like The Freshman, the 1990 film with Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando. On IMDb.com, it only garners a 6.4 rating. How can this be? It's one of my favorites. Let me know your rating.

My stroll down nostalgia lane was courtesy Netflix, where I currently have a two-week trial. I discovered that I can watch some movies instantly on my computer, and this holiday weekend it's been The Freshman and Bottle Shock. What do I have to say about Bottle Shock, the movie about the 1976 blind tasting between California and French wines that California won? They really worked hard to make the female lead look like Jane Fonda, which was fun to see. Otherwise, it was pretty unwatchable.

BTW, it got a 6.8 on IMDb. What is the world coming to?

The appeal of vampires

By way of elegant blogger Rebecca Clay Haynes, this question: "What accounts for the enduring appeal of vampires?"

She asked this question on her Facebook page, and, among several comments, attracted this Iron John-style assessment:

 The more divorced we get from our primal, pagan, animal, dark, shadow side, the more "civilized", the more "in our head", "out of touch with our bodies", "sexually repressed", etc., etc., the more appealing is the mythology of an external, evil, amoral, blood-sucking, primal being drawn to us, to enter us, fang first.

This may have been true from about 1946 to about 1963, but I don't think anyone can argue that we are out of touch with our bodies or sexually repressed today. We are among the most puritanical and yet sexualized societies ever to hit the earth. You can't escape sexual imagery, language, politics, or anything else sexual if you are in any way a consumer of popular culture. I'm pretty sure we are in touch with our primal-- selfish, fearful, pleasure-seeking, survival-oriented-- selves. We have never not been, some folks' mid-twentieth century desire to the contrary notwithstanding.

I am an interpreter of particular stories in particular contexts, and for this phenomenon I very much consider the target audience.

For the Twilight series of books which is currently holding the attention mostly of young girls and women-- and some of their mothers-- the appeal has nothing to do with vampires, and everything to do with the classic (American?) female desire for the bad boy. Here also you get the double whammy of a bad boy, Edward, who is actually chivalrous and honorable, which is a lethal (so to speak) combination for romantically-inclined girls and women.

But there is also the component of blood. For adolescent girls who are just getting familiar with the reality that blood will be in their lives on a monthly basis-- and that there will be a relationship between that and sexuality and childbearing-- I could see an erotic fascination with vampires.

In the trailer for New Moon, for example, the central scene is the one in which the heroine Bella cuts her finger, and a vampire goes crazy over the droplets of blood that come out. I have the impression that many girls would appreciate a story in which men are more attracted than repulsed when women bleed.

In this context, the title "New Moon" makes complete sense. 

As to the more universal appeal of vampires-- I don't know that there is one. Many international stories are mirrors, reflecting back the tensions and ambiguities with which an individual or culture dominantly identifies. I did a quick search of scholarly literature and found, for example, that the original Dracula by Bram Stoker may have addressed the colonial British fear of interracial marriage. 

BTW, I have not seen New Moon yet, though one man at least has. The two young ladies in my life did so on opening weekend, and both pronounced it good. When I asked my thirteen-year old if she liked Taylor Lautner, the werewolf character with the bare chest, she clammed up. Nary a smile. "Your silence speaks volumes," Dad said. Later on she allowed as to how he might have been somewhat attractive. She always did want a dog around the house.

This blogger is a saint

If you like dark, grown-up juvenile humor, smart-aleck attitudes, curiosity, silliness, words, and things that make you waste your time and keep clicking, check out this blog. You've got to love a blogger with "kidicarus222" in the URL. Large amounts of fun content for free. The Internet is amazing.

Tiramisu for you, Drew.

Samhain and the saints

The other night, the assistant priest at the church where I've worshiped for 20 years came over to the house to host a teenage hero event for the youth group my son attends. I provided chili-- Dad's-- coleslaw, salad, and bread, and she provided the devotion.

As the hosting parent, I felt as if I should be in the background, so instead of sitting with them, I eavesdropped, and waited for the time to pick up my daughter from her dance class.

I don't remember much from the devotion, but I do remember that the priest mentioned Samhain, Celtic New Year, which is the origin of Hallowe'en and a time, during the transition between old and new, when there is a fracture in the fabric of things, and entities from the other world may pass into ours for a time.

Except that the priest pronounced it as it is spelled, Sam-hane, and as far as I know it is not pronounced that way. I thought it was pronounced Sow-een, but according to this site it is pronounced shavnah.

This does not surprise me from a language where the  name Cuchalain is not pronounced Coo-chuh-lane but Cuh-hullen.

In previous years I may have gone up to the assistant priest afterwards and discussed the situation. I have always been a hands-on churchgoer. But this year I felt no pressing need. I have for various reasons moved on from that beloved place to a new beloved place, and with a new beloved. It is good to be worshipping with her there.

Last year at this time, I wrote "I'm optimistic, on this night when traditionally we move from one year to the next. I'm optimistic because we are also moving from one president to the next, and I do feel as if we have a chance to be better."

2009 has been better-- for me personally, for sure, and I hope for my readers and the nation. I know that we have a lot of challenges.

I have always struggled with pessimism, so I was a little surprised that I used that word optimism, especially in such a dark year. But my intuition must have been working that evening I posted.

Americans are optimistic people, and they tell optimistic stories. Apparently, according to Barbara Ehrenreich, we are too optimistic. But I'm okay with it. I'm getting better at accepting optimism. I think my faith suggests it. I'm ready to try something new.

In my house I have an icon of Saint John Chrysostom, the patron saint of teachers and preachers. He is a companion on the way, a daily reminder of my need and privilege to accept from and give love to the saints of God-- human beings around me, about me, behind me, and ahead of me, who are made in God's image. John is an icon of optimism, just as All Saint's Day, November 1, is a Christian response to the uncertainty and anxiety of transitions.

May this morning find us optimistic and with the saints we love.