Of All Things, an Answer!

I love to read. Always have. And, being perfectly honest, I like two types of books more than just about anything else: I love history/biography books and I love rich fantasy books of the LOTR, Space Trilogy, Narnia, even Harry Potter genre. There are actually few fantasy series that I will get myself involved in because they have to have a certain special something to make me really attach to them. I remember when I finished reading Tolkien the first time, and I had even mined the goodness of the histories of Middle Earth, reading like mad through Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, and finally the Silmarillion. When I was done, I felt empty, as if I had lost a living breathing part of me. I tried to find something to start reading, to make a new connection. I picked up, at friend's recommendation, the Shannara series, but could never get involved. The writer, Terry Brooks, was dealing with a subject on which the master (JRRT) had already closed the book. At least, there wasn't enough of a difference between the two worlds, and Shannara seemed more like Middle Earth-lite, and why would anyone want that when they had so recently enjoyed the full joy of the real thing?

Well, I was depressed and so my friend, who was also a Tolkien fan and understood (though perhaps not entirely) how I felt, made a new suggestion: try Stephen R Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle. Its a take on, among other things, the Arthurian legend and the legend of Atlantis. Lawhead mixes his myths well (I think) and also knows his history, so in general his books are enjoyable, if his writing is not the best. I give this critique now, nearly 10 years since I first read his books and thought they were fantastic. Today, I would say that his Song of Albion cycle is slightly better than the Pendragon cycle, but that's a matter of general indifference with regard to this post.

What this post is about is an answer. An obvious answer to a question which, as I have asked it, has grown to such a degree that I thought I could never fully and capably answer it. Isn't that always the way? The question sprung from reading Homer and Plato in Torrey: why does Plato relate his ideas to us through myth? For that matter, why did the Christ speak in parables? The answer, which I discovered of all places in the middle of Stephen R Lawhead's fantasy book, Merlin, actually makes me cringe a little--it really is so obvious I worry that perhaps all my "education" is a myth in its entirety and I really should give Biola back their degree cause I'm clearly too dense to actually be finished with the basics of undergrad studies. Sigh.

The answer, as Merlin reflected while listening to a bard and comparing the response of the people to their response when listening to a priest's homily, is that myth moves men's hearts better than any brilliant logical argument ever can or ever will. We have myth and use myth because without it, even though we might know the right thing to do, our hearts could not be spurred into action without the fantasy of a good myth showing our wicked hearts the way.

This is why the preservation of "story" is good...everytime a new, healthy, good myth is told, new imaginations engage and hearts are opened to messages they could never hear if they sat through a thousand Sunday sermons. This is why my friend, Paul, who is desperately trying to finish the prep for his production of Romeo & Juliet is actually fighting the good fight, not merely having a good time acting and directing.

This is also why art matters. A thought occurs to me as I write this...perhaps, since it is new, it is unreasonable, but I'll write it down and flesh it out as I go...perhaps this is actually the argument for why there should be certain limits for what "art" gets to do publicly. I am not condoning censure outright...but surely there is a real and obvious problem with artists that don't take their power seriously, or recklessly chose to use their medium to routinely attack values of the community simply because they feel its not "progressive" enough. For all the flack that politicians get, its the artists that move the soul of the nation, not the masters of simple rhetoric. And my critique, I think, should not be countered by the simple tactic of "if you don't like it, don't look" as if the problem is solely with me, not the art that inspires a problem. Art makes its presence known and felt on the culture that permits it to exist. I am not, at this point, limiting my criticism to merely the typical "individuals" that compose the artistic community of colleges--I am at this point aiming my gun at anyone involved in entertainment, from art galleries to movies, to the commericials on TV to the music playing in Starbucks.

Perhaps there was something truly good about the fact that art used to be more unique, and you had to be good, and acknowledged to be so, before you were allowed to present your product to the world. I know that there are details I am skipping over, and surely an artist or an art historian could lay me out for certain assumptions I have...but I just wonder...if we took art as seriously as we claim to take politics (or any other "serious" issue that impacts society for that matter), what would our society be like?

Anyways...I found an answer. It was obvious...I think I may have known it (though I couldn't have articulated it properly). This Summer, whatever else you do, make sure you have the time to listen to good music, in some wild place. Make sure you get to sitting over the embers of a dying fire, and make sure that you hear a good myth. The soul yearns to soar, and on the wings of the right myth it might fly high enough to catch a glimpse of heaven.