Reflections on Archetypes and the Hero Journey

I wrote this essay as a final assignment in Barb Osburg's Mythology class as part of a Master's program at Webster University in 2002. Now, I am exploring the essence of trickster wisdom and it feels relevant. Hence, I am posting it here.

Some would call Joseph Campbell a wizard since he has faced the metaphysical dragons and determined himself invulnerable, except for that ultimate dragon, Death, who trumps all. Unless, as Don Richardson, author and lecturer at Fuller Seminary, writes, God has placed "eternity in their hearts" - "their," meaning the meta-cognitive corporate consciousness of every culture the world over. Since, in the Apostle Paul's words, what can be known about God is "evident" by means of his creation (Romans 1:19), even the kings of the earth can be required to "kiss the Son lest he be angry and [they] perish in the way" (Psalm 2:12).

Obviously, magic, shamanism, occult arts, and various other manifestations of spiritual power exist and impact the material world regardless of whether or not they are acknowledged or invoked. Festivals and ritual re-enactments routinely re-assert the claims of various gods, demigods, and mythologies over regions and people groups. These, according to George Otis Jr., of the Sentinal Group, are doors into the realm of the spirit, or Madeleine L'Engle's metaphor, "wrinkles in time."

An ingenue-innocent who explores these various stories might marvel when echoes resound beyond natural boundaries and past trade routes without experiencing any dis-equilibrium. But, when the paradoxes penetrate past the innocent's mind they make muddles of any rotely parroted religious dogma. Thus, the first abandonment comes, full of disillusion.

Now, orphaned and alone, the menacing melancholy becomes a sublime monster who mocks all the meaning that once made sense. The loneliness lingers until its listlessness becomes unbearable and transforms the orphan, John Walker-like, into a wanderer.

Is it a wanton wondering or a quiet quest for truth that turns the weakling into some terrible Taliban, garbed like a medieval warrior hiding in a robber baron's den? What satisfaction comes to the "martyr" when, dying like Samson, he pulls the pizzaria's pillars down? Which wizard empowers him: Osama?

Does it even matter because all the apocalypses agree that the end is? Or, is there a magic that is deeper still, as the Lion, Aslan, insists, of which the White Witch knows nothing, a magic roar reverberating from before the beginning to after the end, proclaiming "I AM" the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)? I choose to be an innocent, protected; an orphan, adopted; a wanderer, returned home; a warrior, commanded; a martyr sacrificed in the service of the Wizard of Wizards who defeated the dragon and who holds the keys.

c. 2002, 2009 by Lesley Barker

New Year Resolution 2009

Surprise me again
I am
Twirling in rainbow taffeta
Battle sore
Weaving sparkled tapestry
New stars singing new victories
While I
Slip softly
Soak
Submerged in my golden sea
There is my ship
Emerging
I am
Dripping gold
As I
Spin free

c. 2009 by Lesley Barker

Making it in the Marketplace - No Place for Children

Making it in the Marketplace—No place for Children
By Lesley Barker c. 2007
A successful business owner recently told me that a lot of nonprofits just don’t understand the marketplace and that is why many of them are in such chronic financial trouble. It reminded me of when Jesus criticized people for being like children sitting in the marketplace and not responding correctly. We played the flute for you but you did not dance….(Luke 7:31 NRSV). Basically he was stating that the marketplace has signals that grownups understand and follow or respond to. Unlike his admonition that one must become like little children in order to enter God’s Kingdom, when in the marketplace, it is not wisdom to exhibit childlike qualities. Kids in the marketplace go after shiny baubles. They don’t consider quality but they look for the lowest price. They think money is endlessly available. They tantrum if told no. They may try to steal just to get a piece of candy. They can be easily taken advantage of and they do not know how to comparison shop. Jesus also applauded certain adult marketplace behaviors. He commended shrewd networking, a calculating approach, a willingness to pay what something costs, and making deals to avoid being in debt. The Bible also advises that one not be overly open about ones business goals or feelings. It suggests that we should be willing to take risks to gain riches, to negotiate for the best deals, and to consider contractual agreements binding. It also expects employers to pay the people they hire extra generously, not to abuse employees or make them have to sacrifice to satisfy the boss, and give them regular and adequate time off and bonuses. While children are known to understand the Kingdom of God, they do not understand the marketplace. Success in both arenas requires wisdom and is available to grownups who can decide whether it is incumbent on them to behave in childlike or mature ways. For nonprofit organizations to be healthy, sustainable, growing, and effective, they need to function with wisdom and maturity in business matters. After all, Jesus concluded in the same passage, wisdom is vindicated by all her children. (Luke 7:35 NRSV).

Emulating Eve

It tastes good to her
That small bite of ripe plum
It
Nobody heard
Tastes
Her teeth slit
Good
The thin skin
To
Nobody saw
Her
Blood-juice drip
It
Slight pleasure
Tastes
Changed everything
Good to
Cost
Her
the world

c. 2007 By Lesley Barker

Eulogy for a Company (AG Edwards) Past

Dan Martin’s “Postcard From Mound City” is the title of a feature cartoon that is published weekly by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The one for Saturday, June 2, 2007 took as its theme the week’s bomb-shell financial announcement that Wachovia will acquire AG Edwards & Sons. Even Mayor Francis Slay was surprised by the news. The region loses yet another national company to a financial takeover like it lost Trans World Airlines and McDonnell Douglas. The “cash register” building at Jefferson and Market will soon boast a new name and the pride of an old St. Louis family and its firm will gradually fade from the city’s memory. The descendents of this brigadier general who was Lincoln’s last appointee and an undersecretary of the treasury department cherish a different recollection of AGE than Dan Martin’s. The cartoonist portrays the man, now bedecked in angel wings, shocked to tears, with a lit cigar and bags of money, supported by his cloud shouting “Whatchama Whozits??!!" Like the recent spate of television commercials that first mocked the name and then attempted to link the company to an oversized egg in transit, this cartoon only demonstrates its creator’s lack of research. AG Edwards was a significant figure in the region’s financial history, granted. He also served to build the Presbyterian legacy in St. Louis that has grown to include North Presbyterian Church, Memorial Presbyterian Church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, and Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church as well as the many congregations that have emerged from each of those since the 1890s. He was instrumental in the founding of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The company prospered but not due to his affinity to bags of money or Cuban cigars. Instead, its commitment to do business by the Book even when it hurt the bottom line and its loyalty to its customers and employees created a reliable financial institution that survived the Great Depression and all the other fiscal storms of the last 100 plus years. It doesn’t look like any of the descendents will have been hurt financially by the Wachovia takeover, even though it was done without their support since they no longer control a majority share of the company’s stock. But, it is with a great sadness that the family finds its legacy fading under the gum of some corporate eraser and itself voiceless to correct the image that will perhaps persist as do the “ghost” signs on the old brick buildings from the same era as the general. AG Edwards was my children’s great-great grandfather.

March

March

c. 2007 by Lesley Barker

Spring, at Winter's cervix crowned

Crocus and Hyacinth

Winter wind moans

Snow-frosted Daffodils

Transition

Tulips, Forsythia, Cherry blossoms

Push bearing down sighing

Spent petals limply lying down

Premature Summer's crying

American Revolutionaries by Lesley Barker

When Samuel Adams addressed the public on the subject of American Independence in Philadelphia, his speech wove the woof of a political imperative through the warp of a clearly nuanced, intimate, and deeply personal biblical faith in God. Whereas his words applied to how abusive but theoretically Christian governments had produced impure expressions of Christianity around the eighteenth century world, they may also provide an equally apt evaluation of the state of twenty-first century American Christianity at large.

Our glorious reformers when they broke through the fetters of superstition effected more than could be expected from an age so darkened. But they left much to be done by their posterity. They lopped off, indeed, some of the branches of Popery, but they left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone. They dethroned one usurper only to raise up another; they refused allegiance to the Pope only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of Christ, vested with authority to enact laws and inflict penalties in his kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth, we shall find that, instead of possessing the pure religion of the Gospel, they may be divided either into infidels, who deny the truth; or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition; or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth.

The players: infidels, politicians, and professors, remain- all made visible by the recent rise and possible demise of the “Religious Right.” Each group has gained a voice in the media and in the marketplace. None of them seems to possess the argument, authority, or acumen needed to bring truth to bear against the besetting problems of our time.

Today’s “infidels, who deny the truth” assert that there is no moral absolute, a position only tenable if there is no deity to whom accountability is due. These assert the individual’s “right to happiness”, “right to choose,” “I’m OK- You’re OK,” and “me first” mentality as the basis for moral, legal, and social decisions. Using a grass-roots shock and awe PR strategy, small under-represented counter-cultural groups have been able to burn their bras, flags, and draft cards in front of television cameras often enough to sway a formidable following. The polarity between these “infidels” and the “professors” has been mitigated recently by today’s “politicians,” however.

Today’s “politicians, who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition” include the Republican political machine as described by David Kuo, (recent assistant to Pres. G. W. Bush and author of Tempting Faith,) and the “new” face of Hillary Clinton whose recent rhetoric is peppered with phrases cut from but not credited to Christian hymns and familiar Bible passages. Meant to mobilize the votes of people whose highest allegiance is to their faith by creating a coded co-affiliation, this is a “did God really say” stratagem of the most subtle variety.
Today’s “professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy” continue to proclaim a merciless God whose favors are based on the kinds of outward righteousness that caused Jesus to label as being practiced by “broods of vipers” and “white-washed sepulchers.” Without decrying the behaviors evinced by these proud, exclusive, power-mongering members of the ruling religious elite, Jesus presented contrast after contrast to demonstrate the approachability of the God who heals the sick, casts out demons, forgives adulterers, and touches the untouchables. Where are the “tax collectors” of our day who are honest enough to stand exposed in the presence of this God and plead for mercy even though next to him, in the same pew, the Pharisee boasts of his own superiority?

Is the real problem that the American church at large- no matter what denominational or non-denominational stripe we consider- has taken its place on the “throne of Christ” so that its demand for allegiance and loyalty to the institution masks the need for individual reliance on the Gospel, Revelation, and a pure expression of the Christian faith? George Barna, a social scientist whose Barna Research Organization concentrates on investigating the state of the American church, concluded that those individual Christians whose lives are the defined by their faith are, with more and more frequency, abandoning the institutional church. Like the Americans to whom Samuel Adams addressed his remarks on independence, these Christians whose allegiance is to that city “not made with hands” have been dubbed “Revolutionaries".