GIVING THANKS

A friend on her blog (that would be Janet at Quoth the Maven posted a list of 50 things she's thankful for this year. She got her list posted last Wednesday. In line with my current procrastination, I'm getting to my list only now. But doing the list is a great idea.

What am I thankful for this year? So, in no particular order...

1: I'm thankful for paying off my car at last. There's great satisfaction in completing the payment of at least one debt.
2: I'm thankful for my job. Not just the having of it, but for the people I work with -- they're great folks!
3: I'm thankful for the talents God has given me, especially writing. I love storytelling in all forms.
4: I'm thankful for health. Minor colds are a bother, but compared to what others have to deal with, they're very minor.
5: I'm thankful for all my friends, in all my circles of interest.
6: I'm thankful for the internet, which is an amazing communication tool, and has made many of my friendships possible.
7: I'm thankful for my church, even in times of turmoil.
8: I'm thankful for my apartment - even though I'm finding it small these days, I still love the neighborhood and the general location. And having a roof over my head is a good thing.
9: I'm thankful for good movies when they come along, because they inspire me as a writer.
10: I'm thankful that I (apparently, and I hope it stays that way) have no allergies. An acquaintance who was at the same Thanksgiving dinner I attended related how he'd discovered that he's recently become allergic to cranberries - and he loved cranberries. That made me conscious of my own fortunate state.
11: I'm thankful for DVD collections of television shows: I love TV and I love the storytelling in certain series. To have them at hand in this compact for, with the extras of commentaries, that also inspires and entertains me.
12: I'm thankful for books in general. In many ways, they still beat techno-gadgets for the transportation of storytelling. Besides they don't need batteries.
13: I'm thankful for J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books. I admire her storytelling skills and planning, and I admire the way she's inspired legions of children to plunge into very long books without complaint. Besides, I like the story myself.
14: I'm thankful for not being the slave of fashion trends - especially when it comes to the current trend in women's shoes. Who thought bringing back those long narrow pointy toes was a good thing? I'm happy with my sneakers, thank you very much.
15: I'm thankful that I live in this day and age. As an academic, I'm a medievalist. But I have no desire to live that life. I'm quite happy with indoor plumbing and flush toilets.
16: I'm thankful for my graduate education. I did well as an undergraduate, but I absorb things fairly easily. Graduate school made me go deeper in learning things. It really taught me how to dig, analyse, and learn.
17: I'm thankful for the literature of the past. It inspires me, and reminds me that human nature doesn't change much through the ages.
18: I'm thankful for being a storyteller. It's so much fun.
19: I'm thankful for being an artist, even if I haven't done much artwork in recent years. It's another form of communication and allows me to express aspects of myself that words can't convey.
20: I'm thankful for every one of the evenings where I come back to my apartment and find a parking spot near the apartment.
21: I am thankful for my family: we may be far flung and not great in regular contact. But we do love each other. And that's precious.
22: I'm thankful for the Thomas Guide of Los Angeles. Even after being here a long time, there are times when I still need it.
23: I'm thankful for the open road, even though I don't often have the chance to "get away". I love driving, when I can just go.
24: I'm thankful for the beauty of mountains. They lift up my heart.
25: I'm thankful for living in Southern California. No snow to shovel.
26: I'm thankful I'm an American -- because ours is a cultural mindset that questions things and thinks that change is indeed possible. Born of revolution, we still think things can be turned over.
27: I'm thankful for music, of all sorts.
28: I'm thankful I was raised to listen to all sorts of music, to hear the music itself and not the genre.
29: I'm thankful for the English language. It's such a wonderful playtoy for a storyteller. It happily absorbs terms from other languages without it seeming odd, continually enriching itself and making itself more precise and variable.
30: I'm thankful for Shakespeare. I love the plays and I love the way the language is used. Always an inspiration and a model to strive for.
31: I'm thankful I studied Latin. It tidied up my grammar, and helped correct some of my chronic misspellings (not all of them, but some).
32: I'm thankful I can touch type.
33: I'm thankful for Amazon.com. My favorite place to shop for books and movies.
34: I'm thankful for my many interests. If I'm bored, it's because I'm bored with myself, not because I have nothing to do or interest me.
35: I'm thankful for living in a multicultural city: the variety is wonderful. Plus you can find any kind of restaurant without traveling ungodly distances.
36: I'm thankful for vanilla. I love vanilla. Plain vanilla ice cream, not so much, but French vanilla yes. And everything else vanilla.
37: So, of course having said that, I'm thankful for chocolate. And now studies are saying that dark chocolate (which I especially love) can be a healthy thing for you.
38: I'm thankful for the fellowship of Premise. Prayer is a powerful bond.
39: I'm thankful for the Mythopoeic Society. The friends are great, and it's an arena that lets me indulge my recreational scholarship whims.
40: I'm thankful for my computer. It serves me well.
41: I'm specifically thankful for the gang at the Dixonverse message board. Being the moderator is a challenge at times, but in the end, worth it. They're good people.
42: I'm thankful for the LabRats. We may be far flung, but it's a great cyber coffee klatch.
43: I'm thankful for the tram drivers at the studio. They're great guys and often help get the day started well with their friendly attitudes.
44: I'm thankful for Carel & Coleman Luck. Carel & I bonded over artwork, the shared outlook of visual artists. And Coleman always challenges me intellectually, and won't let me off a hook. A wonderful friendship with wonderful folks.
45: I'm thankful for Janet & Lee Batchler. Good friends who are generous when they can be, and faithful.
46: I'm thankful for Sally Smith, who's become a closer friend this year. She pushes me to write better, and I appreciate it.
47: I'm thankful for Kyle Ferdstead. Best friend and a good prayer partner. And her husband Kelly, who is my pocket computer guru.
48: I'm thankful for my friend Chuck Dixon, comic book writer extraordinaire. He always manages to surprise me with his story twists. He makes it look easy. But he is a complete craftsman.
49: I'm thankful for Denny O'Neil - sensei and inspiration. His work has long inspired me.
50: And lastly, but hardly the least: I'm thankful to be alive.

IT REALLY HAPPENED!

(Side matter: Wow! I procrastinated so well, that the blog missed the whole month of October! Heh.)

Anyway, I recently ran across a reference to a fairly new book called Jesus and the Lost Goddess. It's about a gnostic approach to Christianity, and focuses on what I suppose we could call the "Feminine Principle", in the person of Mary Magdalene. The blurbs tout the contents as the being the beliefts of "the earliest Christians".

Yeah. Right.

Gnosticism, generally speaking, does in one form or another, predate Christianity. It's a particular way of looking at existence. According to some sources, one feature is the perception that material existence is evil, and that knowledge of spiritual matters is more important, and acquired by special initiation. And indeed, many who were exposed to early Christianity blended the two.

But at rock bottom, gnosticism runs counter to some basic things about Christianity. So the idea that gnostic Christians were the earliest Christians (and implying that us orthodox believers have got it all wrong) really bugs me. And when they go on to talk about Jesus (and even Mary Magdalene) as some sort of mythic figure outside history, that too bugs me.

Here's why.

It really happened. Jesus really did walk the earth, at a particular time, in a particular place.

Not only that, God Almighty, creator of the universe, chose to manifest himself in a material form.

So... if God chose to become human, that sort of indicates that He does think there's something important and valuable in the material world. Therefore we should regard our material existence as being as important as our spiritual existence. And also, the whole point of the Gospel was that the knowledge of God that Jesus gives us is available to everyone. Right out there in the open. Nothing hidden and esoteric about it. From the simplest children to the oldest confused grandparent, from the ill to the healthy, from the poor to the rich, all the teachings of Jesus are right there, available. No special initiation required. All that is needed to "join the club" was the acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord. How hard is that?

Well... hard enough, because it seems too easy. There is a bit of a human tendency not to value those things that come easily.

Now, I mentioned the bit about making Jesus into some sort of mythic figure as something that bothered me. I do need to address that, because I do have very strong beliefs about the power of Christ's story as myth. In other writings, I've called myth "the language of our psyche". We use symbols to represent powerful meanings -- like lightning representing the sudden appearence of the power of God, for example. It's one of the ways we humans go about sorting out our reactions to the world around us. I think it's an important part of our nature. And I think Christianity is the most powerful myth because it is also the true, the real mythic story.

It really happened.

It's not just a symbolic representation of spiritual nature. It's not just a pattern of the cycles of life. It's not just a story that reflects our nature.

It really happened.

There are many myths about heroes being born at the darkest points of the year, heroes who go on to do great things for their people, bringing hope. But Jesus really did it. (Of course, we don't really know what time of the year he was born. Luke's account doesn't really give an indication of which season Joseph went down to Bethlehem. So, tradition moved the celebration to the "mythic time" that would suit the real events.) There have been myths about gods being killed and rising from the dead (because that is the pattern of agriculture, harvest and regrowth). But Jesus really did it.

If it were all "just a story", just a myth about meaning with no real connection to history, why did the early disciples describe themselves so badly? Time and again, they are shown not to understand what their master was teaching. Time and again, they show themselves to be dense and foolish. Peter denies that he's a follower of Jesus, not once but three times. Sure, it was a scary situation. But if it were here and now, that wouldn't exactly recommend him as a leader and authority. Not only that, God has to send him a dream multiple times in order to convince him that it's okay to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. Paul admits that he started out trying to exterminate the very beliefs that he ended up spreading far and wide. James and John are shown to be bickering about who will get precedence in their Master's kingdom. Thomas very stubbornly disbelieves his comrades when they tell hime that Jesus did what he promised to do, to come again, from the dead (this in spite of having seen him raise Lazarus from the dead). These are not flattering pictures, and have the definite tang of "real life" to them. So very human in their reactions, these men tell about the events as they really happened, including all their own mistakes.

J.R.R. Tolkien, trying to help C.S. Lewis over his last stumbling blocks to becoming a Christian, made the observation that (pagan) myths have power because they are partial reflections of a genuine reality. The story of Jesus doesn't have power because it "fits mythic patterns". It has power because it is the prototype of all myths. From before the foundations of the world, the Logos was with God, was God. And became incarnated in a specific time and place.

Nothing hidden. Nothing esoteric (ie, known only to a select few). Nothing mysterious.

Well, the only mystery is why God loves us so much that He did this for us. Came close to us, became one of us. Just for love.

But it really happened. It wasn't a made up story. It wasn't some vague "mythic pattern". It really happened. Not just spiritually, but materially. Flesh and blood, along with heart and soul.

There isn't a story more exciting than that. Not really.