How a Myth Starts

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth. 

Welcome back. I would like to share the four extraordinary things I saw today that inspired me to write about how to write myths and legends.

To write a legend, you must have a worthy subject, that is, someone so remarkable that the legend transmits a transcendent meaning about them.

Someone like Jesus of Nazareth.

Conceivably, any one of us could write a parable about Jesus in the way the early anonymous Christians wrote about him when they composed the canonical and non-canonical gospels.

You would also need a concern in your heart or in your community that you would imagine Christ addressing in your story.

The imagery you put into your story would be something that you see on any given day.

For instance, today, I saw four remarkable sights (five if I count my wife who startles me every time she graces my eyes).

As I walked this morning, I saw a fire hydrant almost entirely buried underground. I thought I might snap off to one of my students, "You're as useless as an underground fire hydrant," if one of them cussed me out (again) after refusing to do their work (again).

Later in the day, as I drove home over the Wilmington Island Bridge I looked to my right and saw the sky on fire. Rarely, does a sunset imbue clouds with so much color. When my eyes dropped to see the Bull River, the water was truly as red as blood.

I thought how ancient prophets, who were actually poets, would have incorporated such a natural sight into their poetry. We are the dummies if we literally believe the water really turned to blood, not the prophets. We miss the loveliness and power transmitted to us from the prophet's sight through his words.

Okay, back on the bridge where, seconds later, I turned to my left and saw a sight I cannot recall ever having seen before. The moon shone in all its fullness behind such thin clouds that it appeared to be peering through blinds. How stunning.

So, taking all that and putting it into a story: give it a shake here, a stir there, and then let it marinate in its own dynamics and Voila! here’s a parable about Jesus:

There came a time when Jesus went to Wilmington Island to visit a friend.

His friend, named James, proclaimed the word of Jesus in a place where many other followers gathered on a Sunday. James, so it was said, had been hobbled recently by the gout.

James was happy to see Jesus. He welcomed him into his home. When his wife, Rachel, saw that it was Jesus visiting her home, she invited him into their kitchen and offered him some wine. As James and Rachel prepared dinner, Jesus asked James if the gout was very painful.

"Lord," James said, "You need not have bothered to come on my account. I have medicine."

Jesus said, "The medicine you received, you shall take comfort in it, and it shall serve you well. The medicine I bring cures much more than disease."

"Yes," James said. "Your medicine cures death."

Suddenly, Jesus looked very sad. "Alas, he said, "In these evil days the medicine I bring is like thinning the blood of a dead man with aspirin."

"No," James said, "Don't say that, Lord. You are the bringer of life and joy and peace."

"I tell you there can be no healing in a land where the wickedness of violent men defiles your rivers and marshes with such a great outpouring of blood. It spills out to defile your streets and splashes up to stain your skies. Behold, even the jittery moon peeks through cloudy blinds and fears to wander.”

“We need your kingdom, now, more than ever,” Rachel said. “How do we bring love and peace into the world?”

“How do you put out a conflagration with a fire hydrant drowning in dirt?” he replied.

Jesus tarried with them until the time for him to depart had come. 

After he went on his way, James and Rachel puzzled over the meaning of what he said for many days.

All right. That’s how it can be done. If I lived in the first century, I would have included images that my eyes would have seen back then.

I have this theory that we all know Jesus. We recognize him in Pope Francis, Dr. King, Gandhi, Jimmy Carter, and others. 

Even atheists admire Pope Francis.  Is it Jesus they admire?

I believe there is a longing in all of us for Jesus of Nazareth to be real and present. I wonder how many of us who do not believe nonetheless wish his stories were true.

For those of us who read stories about him, or write them, it will be ever so that we want to keep him alive.

Blessings…