August 17: Mythology, Syllabus, Working Hard

In between answering phones, scheduling surgeries, filing charts, I've been plugging away on my syllabus for the mythology class I'm teaching this fall.  I spent a few hours just trying to figure out what movies I was going to screen for my students and how to break the chapters up into distinct sections.  (I settled on The Chronicles of Narnia:  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the new version of Clash of the Titans for the movies, and I managed to cut the textbook up into six different subjects.)

This is funny!  I don't care who you are.

The hardest part of piecing together a syllabus for me is coming up with the semester schedule (what's due when and what to read when).  It's the one part of the syllabus to which students actually pay attention.  I usually spend quite a few hours mapping out the entire three months.  It takes a lot of thought and planning.  It's now about three o'clock in the afternoon, and I just finished up a little while ago.  I'm whipped.  I could put my head down on this keyboard and literally fall asleep.  I still have to finish the syllabus for my Good Books class, but that one will be easier.  I taught the class last winter.  I'll probably finish that syllabus on Friday.

As I was working on the course objective for my mythology class this morning, I came up with a couple of paragraphs that were pretty thought-provoking for me:

Please keep in mind that mythology is not just the study of a culture’s stories.  It is the study of a culture’s religion.  In this class, the term “myth” is not synonymous with fiction or fantasy.  It refers to humans’ attempts to understand the mysteries of the cosmos, the heart, and the soul.  Therefore, if I sometimes refer to Christian myth, I am not trying to be pejorative.  The narrative of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, has been one of the guiding forces of Western culture.  It has shaped the moral and spiritual codes of many cultures and times for centuries.  All mythology is about truth or the search for truth.

Therefore, the ultimate objective of this course is the pursuit of truth, in the myths of Greece and Rome, Zeus and Jehovah, Isis and the Virgin Mary, Aslan and Jesus Christ.  This will be our quest, our odyssey, for the semester.

I used to get very defensive when someone used the term "myth" in conjunction with Jesus Christ.  I didn't like it when someone called the Gospels the "Jesus narrative."  There seemd to be something devaluing in those two terms--"myth" and "narrative."  Both implied fabrication or outright deception in my mind.  Obviously, I have revised my opinion.  Thinking of mythology as the study of religions is very helpful.  It avoids the whole question of reality versus fantasy.  Instead, it focuses on the fundamental human truths all myths embody, including the Christian myth.  Goodness.  Altruism.  Dignity.  Bravery.  Flaws.  Failure.  Redemption.  They're all there.  For me, this is a kind of revolutionary way of viewing mythology.

I'm a little preoccupied right now with myth.  Sorry.  There are worse things with which I could be preoccupied, however.  Justin Bieber.  Or Twilight.  Or The Hunger Games trilogy.  Oh, wait.  I actually am obsessed with Suzanne Collins' books right now.  In fact, when I'm done typing this post, I'm going to dive back into Catching Fire, which I'm about half-way through.  Actaully, there are a lot of mythological implications in Hunger Games.  The reaping, the games, the victors--it all sort of reminds me of a version of the ancient Olympics.  I believe that many of the Olympic sports in ancient Greece were fatal, to-the-death kinds of competitions.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

So, Saint Marty is signing off.  He's got a date with Katniss Everdeen.