Myth is a reality immeasurably greater than concept. It is high time that we stopped identifying myth with invention, with the illusions of primitive mentality, and with anything, in fact, which is essentially opposed to reality… The creation of myths among peoples denotes a real spiritual life, more real indeed than that of abstract concepts and rational thought. Myth is always concrete and expresses life better than abstract thought can do; its nature is bound up with that of symbol. Myth is the concrete recital of events and original phenomena of the spiritual life symbolized in the natural world, which has engraved itself on the language memory and creative energy of the people… it brings two worlds together symbolically.

It is modernity that demands certitude from a “literal” understanding, but the myth also needs the concrete events.

Thank you for a good read.

And yet even typing that, that’s not quite it either. What this feels like is a season. What’s out the other side of that? I do not know.

Sometimes I wonder if a life lived on the edges of faith means that sometimes you almost feel like you’re losing it.

It doesn’t really matter to me whether people believe the literal aspect of it, but I do hope that the mythic message, the symbolism, the mysticism, and the existentialism of it comes through regardless. It is only when the strict adherence to the literal preempts the personal, universal, eternal message that I worry.

Yvonne: You’re right on target with the question of how we interpret the cross. I consciously tried to avoid poking at that hornet’s nest in my post; but I should figure that one of my many smart and thoughtful readers would stir it up for me. Indeed, beyond the question of what we believe regarding the historicity of the cross and resurrection is the far more vexing question of how we interpret the Passion: what does it mean, what does it say about God, what does it say about us. My guide here is Julian of Norwich, who saw it strictly in terms of an expression of suffering love, without any sense of substitutionary atonement. But as you point out, many others see it quite differently.

Personally I am sure that if the resurrection was literally true, then I would subscribe to Christus Victor theology rather than vicarious atonement, as it is much more humane; but I think that a physical resurrection from the dead is extremely unlikely. Therefore I regard it as a metaphor. Also, the story of Christ seems to draw on a number of similar stories about the death and resurrection of god-men (e.g. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Orpheus), which clearly relate to the psychological aspects of the spiritual journey — the death of the ego and its rebirth in a new form that is more in balance with the rest of the psyche. On this level, the story is valuable; whereas, when taken literally, it seems quite harmful, especially when couched in terms of vicarious atonement or penal substitution.