Maybe Storytellers are a Good Thing

I was startled to glean from The Storyteller that it seems there is a lot of emphasis put on stories and the place they have in culture and life. This may be hardly news to any of us, and certainly came upon me slowly as a multi-week startling process, but it’s shocking to me that the storyteller seems to be highlighted as the pinnacle of human achievement.

Now obviously, the book puts much emphasis on the storyteller. Mascarita recounts the day he realizes his new-found position on page 210.

”So there I was -- the storyteller. I was thunder-struck. There I was. My heart was like a drum. Banging away in my chest: boom, boom. Had I met my destiny? Perhaps.”  (Llosa, 210)

Maybe I was startled when I read this because I, deep down, think that we all have a purpose that must be “greater” than one who tells stories. But upon inward reflection, I realized this faulty thinking process within myself. In an achievement driven culture, it seems that we could all use a dose of the reality that we need to slow down and think about where we have come from—because that is what determines where we are going, pal.

So perhaps we need more storytellers in this world.

That, anyway, is what I have learned. 

Saul the Hypocrite

The main message of The Storyteller puts a lot of emphasis on the importance on oral traditions within cultures while maintaining purity of those cultures. Saul Zuratas advocates this, and yet his actions seem to be contradictory of his beliefs. He infiltrates himself as an outsider into the Machiguenga culture and becomes a person of extreme influence. 

Saul's opinions on the matter of keeping the tribes pure are clear and strong from the beginning. Perhaps the clearest statement he makes regarding the matter is issued during a conversation where Saul was worked up about the civilized world imposing on the native tribes.

"And the only way to respect them is not to go near them. Not touch them. Our culture is too strong, too aggressive. It devours everything it touches. They must be left alone. Haven't they amply demonstrated that they have the right to go on being what they are?" (Llosa 98-99)

And yet this is just what Saul does. It may have been with the motives to maintain the culture--to keep the stories pure--but this doesn't make his actions any more reflecting his beliefs to leave the culture alone any more than the missionaries or Spaniards he so despises.

But perhaps this is the Llosa's way of inserting dramatic irony into the plot to make the more striking point: that contamination of all cultures on this point is inevitable. Any culture is simply not able to keep alone.

Boys2Men

Initiation. We all experience it. Initiation is the moving from one context to another. It involves leaving behind the old self and adopting a new existential condition. A major initiation category is the passing from puberty into adulthood. In all cultures, boys become men and girls become women. But I think that, in America, we are blurring those lines and, as a result, our initiations have become watered down.

For thousands of years, men and women have had very different roles in society. Men have, historically, been the breadwinners and providers of the family, while women have been the breadcookers and the caregivers. To be a man was to adopt attributes such as rejecting passivity, accepting responsibility, and leading courageously. To be a woman was to adopt all things feminine: being beautiful, having an incredibly considerate personality, and being a helper and an encourager. These attributes were not only set by society, but have also been hardwired into the genome. Men and women have very different body structures, thought processes, desires, needs, and abilities. I’m not saying there is, nor should be, no overlap, but I do think that, in our culture that puts so much energy into equality in all things, a balance has been offset.

I don’t want this to become a sexist post, because that doesn’t reflect me or my opinions at all. But I do want to focus on what has happened to men. The point I want to make is that our society has lost something vital in its quest for equality: differences. To be initiated into either manhood or womanhood looks the same. No longer are we challenging men to be men and, as a result, we have a breed of men that is watery and lazy. I realize that there are many different viewpoints out there for what it means to be a man, but men should be strong leaders who don’t make excuses or whine about circumstances. And we have lost this because we have lost initiations.

In the older days, it was the father’s job to raise his sons to be the men, but that doesn’t happen all across the board anymore. Fathers should challenge sons and not allow them to be lazy just “because they feel like it”. I don’t exactly agree with many of the ceremonial initiations of many cultures that either mutilate boys or cause pain for no good reason, but these cultures have made men. These men are expected to be strong—not show signs of weakness.

And we no longer have those expectations for our boys. 

Initiation into Internalization

My original plan was to give a presentation on the initiation into the Hindu religion—playing off how they would have to renounce all possessions and talk about how painful that is. But during my research, I found the story of Shiv Shivabalayogi Maharaj. He was a master of meditation in the traditions of the ancient yogis. He achieved “self-realization” after a 12 year meditative journey of “tapas”.

Tapas means “deep meditation” and is derived from the Sanskrit word tap. Tap has several meanings, but some definitions include “pain, suffering, and mortification”. I knew that I must talk about this in light of painful initiation.

Shivabalayogi began his journey at the age of 14 in 1949. He was chilling on the banks of a river with his buddies, eating a palmyra fruit, when his body began to convulse and a bright light was emanated from the fruit. He fell into a deep meditation that neither his friends, nor the people of the village could rouse him from.

Many thought his antics were acting for attention or money. Some even abused the boy. They hit him, poured sugar water on him so that ants would bite him, and even threw a burning gasoline rag on him. But no matter. The boy understood that tapas was a personal endeavor to achieve a goal—foregoing whatever bodily pain and suffering came along the way.

He retreated to a cemetery outside of town where he could meditate in peace for 23 hours a day, enduring insect, rodent, and cobra bites as well as the rotting of skin. Every night at midnight, he would be roused from his meditation to feel the pain his body was enduring.

After 12 years of this all I can ask him is, “Was it really worth it?”

Carried on Traditions

The Nacirema were a tribe living in North America. Little is known about these people, but one thing that is known is their fascination with the mouth. They believed it has supernatural implications for the soul and relationships and thus did their best to keep it maintained by brushing and yearly or biyearly visits to the “mouth medicine man”. American (Nacirema spelled backward) people also seem to have carried on this tradition.

The Nacirema’s daily mouth rite involved inserting a bundle of hog hairs and powders into their mouth and stirring them around in an organized series of movements.

Americans use nylon hairs attached to a stick to mix a paste into a froth, using the smooth faces of the teeth as a makeshift stirring surface.

Nacirema also visited a special medicine man who dealt with teeth, specifically. This man would poke at their gums with needles and use special probes to clense the mouth of evil. This often involved tortuous pain for the client.

Americans also visit a “mouth man” known as a “dentist” to some and “Satan” to others. This man also uses various tools for probing, poking, and provoking pain to rid the mouth of an evil spirit known as “Halitosis”.  

It seems some mythological traditions never die.

Calasso Translated into Christian Mythology

Conviviality, rape, and indifference.

Calasso uses these three phases to explain the passage of time and the metamorphosis of the relationship people have with the gods. He uses these to describe Greek mythology, but it can be extended to include the current state of man.

With the old convivial familiarity between god and man lost, the ceremonial contact through sacrifice impoverished, man's soul was left exposed to a gusting violence, an amorous persecution, an obsessional goad. Such are the stories of which mythology is woven: they tell of how mortal mind and body are still subject to the divine, even when they are no longer seeking it out, even when the ritual approaches to the divine have become confused. (Page 53)

This is our situation. So how are we to reconcile with the divine? I love how Calasso describes our efforts: "the ritual approaches to the divine have become confused." With the number of religions and worldviews man has contrived, I would say that "confused" is a good way to put it. But is there a method that works?

Personally, my belief system resides in the mythology of Christianity. I hold to it as the True Story (Mytho-Logy) so I would like to make a parallel between Calasso's philosophical parts of every story: separation, initiation, and return.

In the beginning was…conviviality. God created man and experienced community with him in the Garden of Eden. But then separation came. Eve was tempted by the serpent to do that which God told them not to do (those women and snakes). The result of this "sin" (literally "missing the mark", an archery term) was that conviviality with the divine was broken: people were "dirty" and God was too "clean" (the church might use terms more like "holy", but sometimes Christian-ese is overused).

This separation was the initiation of the current state of being: pain, suffering, and (ultimately) death. The Bible describes death as "separation from God" (by that definition, it would seem that a part of initiation would be death even in life).

So is there a way out? According to the Bible, only one: through faith in Jesus Christ.

John 14:6 - "Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

This describes Jesus as the only way to "return" to the state of how things once were: conviviality with God. But how does that work? Salvation based on faith alone is a strange concept and one that, frankly, is unique to Christianity: every other religion requires dutiful practices to reconcile with the divine. The only ticket in Christianity comes in the form of faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 - "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast."

This clearly expresses that there is nothing that people can do to "be saved", but it is a divine gift.

The reason it's a gift is because of the reason for separation in the first place: people. People can't maintain good deeds because we always fail. If we could be perfect (like God) then we wouldn't need to be saved. But the fact is, we blew that. I don't know any perfect people, do you?

It was God who gave us a way out (even though we didn't deserve it). This is why it's a gift that we have received by grace. It was because of God's love that we have an option of being reconciled. This love is outlined in the verse that anyone who has even seen a church has likely heard.

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

In summary, we can't achieve reconciliation with God based what we do, because it's never good enough. Even with our best efforts, it's not perfect. So what does all this have to do with Jesus?

According to the Bible, Jesus came to earth and lived a perfect life. Throughout the Old Testament, people would have to give animal sacrifices to "atone" for their inability to live perfect lives. But even that wasn't a permanent fix. Jesus was the permanent fix. He lived a perfect life and died an undeserving death in our place. He died for us.

So what does faith have to do with that? What it takes for people to return to conviviality with God is faith.

John 1:12 - "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."

The result of that faith is that Jesus Christ's righteousness (perfection) is substituted (consistent with a sacrifice) for our own righteousness (or lack thereof) so that when God looks at us, he only sees the perfection of Christ. It's pretty slick. All a person has to do is put their faith in what Jesus did and to repent of their selfish ways. And then boom, reconnection with God and eternal life.

The alternative to getting our deeds paid for?

Romans 3:23 – “For the wages of sin is death [eternal separation from God].”

Crazy.

But that's the story.