Just a thought-1

There has ever existed in the human frame of mind a weak but real hope that life aims toward a happy ending. The delight children take in a happily resolved fairy-tale adventure is an echo of this human preference for an end that merits a smile rather than a grimace. And the disappointment you (and I) feel when a good movie or novel ends badly, also witnesses to this stubbornly human inclination. The ancients, by whom I mean the bearers of culture prior to announcement of the Gospel, struggled to express this attitude. And although the tales of Homer, or the legends of the ancient Norse sea-faring men, or even the pre-Colombian tales of the tribes that inhabited the environs of what is now Mexico City, all had their dark streak denoting the inevitability of tragic suffering and loss in life, they nonetheless held out a glimmer-like hope that the suffering would abate somehow, and a resolution in keeping with our nobler hopes would prevail-- in the end.

The ancients often anticipated a kind of unexpected intervention from on high to accomplish this resolution in a narrative tail. Odysseus got much aid from Athena in order to find his way home. He loses most of his men along the way, and home is never how you left it, but the resolution is satisfying on a deep level. Balder the Good, from the Norse literature preserved in the Prose Edda, seems to shine the more brightly as a figure in mythology precisely because the envy and jealousy of the other gods do not penetrate to hurt him. True, the malicious God Loki, apparently the trickiest of the powers that swirl around the environs of men, did Balder in with a sprig of mistletoe. Still, Balder reigns in a way, even in the abode of the dead, while Loki ends in terrible chastisement.

Ambivalent tales, you say? Well, I agree. But my point is that the ancients knew about the struggle between good and evil. It was an enigma to them, and they tried to weave a credible series of tales that acknowledged the sorrow, without negating the hope. Anthropologists note that the Aztecs assumed into their mythologies a host of deities and heroes present in the religious forms of the peoples they conquered. We know that the god of human blood-sacrifice, Tezcatlipoca, defeated Quetzalcoatl and banished him away. The latter deity did not desire human sacrifice. But the persistent legend circulated that he would return and reign over human affairs in some hoped-for future.

I mention the tree mythic examples to make the point that pre-Christian cultures were realistic about the darkness that envelopes the human condition, that they ascribed this to the influences that to a large extent were beyond human control. They often anticipated, however weakly, the vindication of goodness. Now, I know some will dismiss the relevance of ancient mythic tales as expressions of naiveté, as outmoded imaginary constructions proper to the childhood of the human race, and the desperation of peoples held captive by religious myth. Aside from such an attitude being an expression of cultural snobbery (many post-moderns seem to think we have advanced beyond having to take the ancients into our conversations), I do not need to take up that argument right now. I only need to point out that the stories themselves indicate a stubborn anticipation of a happy ending to a tail that trails much misery. And that the happy ending is inextricably tied to the triumph of life over death (Quetzalcoatl will return), goodness and creativity over maliciousness (Balder is not finally gone, and Loki cannot get away with having sent him to the abode of the dead) and provident protection over malignant usurpation (The Odyssey).

Ambivalence marked by a real, even if wistful hope that in the end the good wins: I would at least say this is present in the ancient record. No doubt, lots of other things are also present there, competing for attention in the ancient imaginal mind. So, you may ask: Why are you writing about this? Mildly interesting, but honestly. Well, because we all need to think more deeply about culture, particularly about what is happening to ours. And I fear that among the manifestations of the uncharted territory modern cultures are traversing, the slowly fading hope in the final triumph of life and goodness is by far the most ominous. And, we cannot fail to ask how this has happened, and what relation it bears to the life and mission of the Church. A starting point for thinking about our current situation, it seems to me, is to ask what effect the Gospel had on the ancient cultures it encountered, and why. To ask that question helps us to understand what the challenge of the New Evangelization is about. What did the Gospel offer to the cultures of ambivalent hopes? What does it offer now to the human community, to our culture and to each one of us individually?

But this is "Just a thought-1". Si Dios me da licencia, I will continue this thought in days to come. Or at least I hope to.