I saw it die and disappear last month yet here it is again. Resurrection! People used to think it was a god you know. The ever dying, ever resurrecting god. Tales of gods dying only to be reborn date back as far as we can see into the history of our species and likely much further. The earliest evidence we have of anything considered "religious" comes from graves. Both our species and Neanderthals buried the dead in the fetal position like a baby in the mother's womb. They gave the corpse things to take with him or her when put back into Mother Earth to be born again. Just about every religious motif you can think of--life after death, dead and resurrected god or gods, gods born of virgins, heaven(s) and hell(s), holy lands and chosen people, creation myths with the life giving tree in its center and four pillars or rivers, the goddess and serpent, catastrophic floods, heroes swallowed by monsters, these and scores more have been found the world over dating back to the earliest art or writing. The German ethnologist Adolf Bastian called them "elementary ideas". Later Carl Jung coined the term archetypes to describe them. Ideas and images as old as humankind itself, appearing everywhere across space and time. How can that be?
The two theories are either diffusion or we evolved with them in our subconscious--any and every human is subject to having these images appear in their nightly dreams. Of course the gods, devils and various tales vary according to respective cultures and periods of history. From there they remain mythical tales or start being read as actual history and become articles of faith. In such cases the individual either believes it or she doesn't. If she doesn't she calls it a lie or pretends to believe in order to be accepted. Not all adherents of the world's religions insist their stories and/or symbols are to be taken literally, but scores still do. So that's one way to look at them.
Another way is just to reject it all as bunk and be done with it. Many go that route too. Indeed, more seem to opt for that route as our species presses forward into the future.
However, there is a third way--the middle path one might say--which is to believe these symbols and tales have value and thus something to teach us since they're so uncannily common across so many religions since the dawn of our species. They all have their own cultural inflections of course, but strikingly similar just the same. What is it that made us this way? How could there be so many different stories of dead and resurrected gods or virgin births--stories that predate the time of Christ by many thousands of years? Could there be something in every single person that transcends culture and time, sex and religion? Indeed, that goes so far beyond anything our waking, conscious minds can imagine that... well, that we can't even imagine it? And if so, then what the heck is it?
Getting jolted by the unexpected appearance of the full moon rising over the nearby hill rattles these and more questions loose in my mind to go over all again for the umpteenth thousandth millionth time. I'll never arrive at a satisfactory answer. I'll never know. But that's okay. The fascination that comes with asking and pondering, contemplating, reading, reflecting and wondering... That's only grown stronger over time and I don't mind it at all. Not knowing only makes the awe, wonder and desire to worship and praise the mystery stronger.
No comments:
Post a Comment