Essays

What I am doing is spinning tales, creating myths, setting up a theological view of the world in fictional form, very much the way Jesus constructed his Kingdom of Heaven in simple little stories that told of Man’s search for the good life.

I am dealing with ethical, moral, social, personal and political questions lying at the troubled soul of modern Man, so my stories are myths because they are encounters with God on the plane of human history.

In ‘The Marriage Myth’ I embrace the basic, primal issue of Man/Woman. This is the Creation Myth. All Life issues from it and the quality of the Man/Woman relationship will determine the quality of human life on earth.

‘The Televangelist’ is Man’s immature dabbling with the issue of Life. Here my young preacher boy grapples with the Devil, never realizing that the Devil is inside himself because he has not digested the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and so he has never grown up to be Man in the true image of God. In the end of his battle with the Devil he will lose his own soul because he does not understand the enemy he is fighting.

‘The Sinner Messiah’ lifts this struggle to a higher and more dangerous level. This Joshua embodies the ultimate evil in Man, for he knows that he is evil but he idealizes the evil and builds his New Jerusalem on a foundation of madness. Power exerted to control others and to perpetuate self and only self. This brings on the ultimate conflict with society and it utterly corrupts the life purpose in the Creation Myth.

‘The Day Christ Came Back’ is the opposite of both ‘The Televangelist’ and ‘Sinner Messiah.’ This is true Man in the person of a modern Christ. He is the true mythical figure grappling with the issue of Life itself. Here Man must make the crucial choice between Life and Death. Good and Evil are locked in battle for the soul of Man. The Christ dies but he wins Life for the unborn --- Man’s future.

‘Jay Cee’ is a political myth. Here the messianic impulse to save the Life of Man takes the form of political power at its apex; the Presidency of the United States. It awakens the adversarial power that seeks to topple the one who rises to the pinnacle of power. What was manifest as the adversary in the Man/Woman marriage relationship in ‘The Day Christ Came Back’ is now ingrained into the political structure of the nation and it effects every aspect of the people’s life. The climax comes when the Adversary confuses Good and Evil and kills the President.

‘The Devil and Tom Walker’ takes this same power struggle and the attempt to differentiate Good and Evil onto the world stage with a war that threatens the future of the world. Both Good and Evil are now disguised because Evil masquerades as Good. As the power struggle shapes up between the two opposing world leaders, both of them claiming God on their side, the attempt is made to define themselves as the hero but both devote their energies to the destruction of Life. Therefore the Gulf War is the stage on which the Battle of Armageddon is fought under false banners which both refuse to recognize as false.

With ‘In the Tobacco Patch’ I reduce the whole issue to the struggle that goes on inside the soul of one man, an old Kentucky tobacco farmer whose only son is dying of lung cancer from smoking. This struggle is mythic in nature because Man meets God in the act of making a decision, a choice between Life and Making a Living. Elmer’s family, his little county seat town, maybe the whole nation and world will be embodied in Elmer’s struggle. So I let him win one. I am the optimist here.

Now comes the question: Where does ‘Alfie’s Story’ fit into this theological structure? To be quite candid about it, ‘Alfie’s Story’ is the story of my own life, in fiction. It too is a tale, a myth, an attempt to catch myself and, disregarding facts, get at the truth of the matter of my own life. This means that I and my whole family must be seen in the flushing light of humor which alone is capable of redeeming the imperfect life of both the individual person and the family which creates, produces and shapes his destiny.

Now the circle is complete. ‘The Marriage Myth’ is the Creation Myth resulting in Family, and in the individual Person unlike any other person in the world.

In case a question remains about Myth, I have to tell you that Myth is an art form designed to both instruct and entertain; to educate through the pleasant experience of tale-telling. The mythmakers never expected their hearers to take what they were saying as literal fact. They were dealing with Truth, which both ignores and transcends fact, to create the history with which we can live.

June 21, 2000