Shabbat shalom y’all,
I don’t recall it verbatim, but one of my favorite descriptions of myth as a literary form is from Karen Armstrong, “A myth is something that has in one sense happened in the past and, in another sense, happens all the time.”
Myths have this hyperdimensional, Flatland quality to them. The stories are about the place and time in which they occurred, but they also illustrate the dynamics occurring in the present moment as they’re told.
Heraclitus (one of the inspirations for the Gospel of John) famously wrote, “You can’t step into the same river twice.” I feel the same goes for myths. Who, what, where, when, how, and why you’re listening to the story is the soil in which the mythic wisdom blooms.
Truth be told, I don’t know what the difference between a story and a myth is. As far as I can tell, how deeply you consider and contemplate a story is what offers its mythic depth. Making a story literal, censors the hyperdimensional power and valence it has available.
In all her platitudes against novels, Ellen was right for recognizing the immeasurable depth fiction has to offer. Her own works can be viewed as plagiarized collages of 19th century histories and hagiographies that amount to what, if published today, might be classified as biblical fiction. A perhaps unwittingly cast spell that many are enchanted by to this day.
In her timeless book Always Coming Home, Ursula K. LeGuin envisioned a world (The Valley) where stories were not separated by their relation to a dualistic understanding of The Fact, but in relation to, what we might call, Agency, or perhaps Intention:
In exploring the textures and forms of fiction, we might reveal something about ourselves that may have been covered up by modern literalism, an archaic conspiracy of poets.
And so, I’d like to announce my new subproject for this substack! Not to be confused with your favorite magazine for youth bored by church, this project will be called GUIDES, featuring serial tales from the toes of time and mission trips to the twilight zone.
These stories will be available to paid subscribers— not because I’m a great writer, but because you’re a great reader and deserve to invest in your reading practice. Subscribers will co-discover these stories with me on an archaeological dig of promised lands.
It’s my hope that these stories will offer a light to the unseen paths that stretch before us. As one apocalypse comes to an anticlimactic end, the next beast feels its way out of the churning oceans.
Whether or not you read my stories, consider whose stories you are reading. Are you honoring the stories for all of their multiplicities of meaning? Are you honoring the land and cultures from which these stories grew? Or are you forcing them into a literalist modernism that’s more alien to their origins than heavenly beings coming to mate with the daughters of men?
Below is one of the first stories that inspired this project, The Helping Hand— a tale of a family saved by a mysterious neighbor in their time of need.
Subscribe now to read Mr. Molina and the Mystery of the Fifth Suit— the first installment of a theological thriller about a supernatural presence lurking in the academy’s sixth grade class…
Thanks for reading.
The Helping Hand
Joel and his family were passing through Mount Shasta on their way to visit their grandparents up in Washington. Torrents of rain poured so hard they couldn’t see the splendor of the mountain. The Friday night sunset sank from silver to black. The rear tire on the driver’s side popped shortly after the sound of the rain on the windshield hardened into hail. The kids were in the back, not yet asleep, and his wife Alma whispered a prayer under her breath as he put on a coat.
“Lord,” Joel prayed amidst the din of hail and branches shaking in the wind, “please strengthen my hands and arms to fix whatever needs fixing. Please keep my family safe.” He walked to the rear tire, holding a small flashlight to pierce through the wet, cold darkness. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you—”
“Need a hand, stranger?” a rich, baritone voice came from a couple of feet behind him in the dark. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you!” the man said as Joel picked up his flashlight. The stranger was almost seven feet tall, wrapped in a dark coat, and had a brightness in his smile and eyes that shone through the darkness. “I’m a neighbor on this mountain and let me tell you y’all aren’t the first flat tires I’ve come across in these storms. Let me give you a hand!”
“That’s very kind of you, sir!” Joel stammered, the cold already getting to him. “Talk about a good Samaritan!”
“Ours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.”
Joel nodded, not really remembering that verse.
“Let’s take a look at what’s wrong here.”
“It’s a flat.” Joel yelled over a gale of wind as they both crouched to look at the tire. When he shined his flashlight on the tire, Joel’s jaw dropped. The tire was fully inflated and unpunctured. “This can’t be right!” he exclaimed.
“Maybe the Lord just wanted to send you a message.” the stranger said casually.
Joel slowly turned to him, “What message might that be, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The Lord works in mysterious ways. I was a little nervous to stop by to see if you needed help. Like I said, I’ve seen many people with car issues asking for help in the middle of a storm. Not everyone who travels these roads is who they say they are.” The stranger stood up and reached out to shake Joel’s hand, “May the Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent from each other.”
Joel reached to shake his hand, “Thanks for your help—” Joel gasped as he felt the man’s hand which was cold and hard as stone.
The man smiled politely and quickly walked back toward the two lights behind Joel’s car which he hadn’t noticed until now. “Stay safe!” the voice called out from the dark. Joel’s mouth hung open as the two lights disappeared, quickly going back up the road without turning.
As soon as Joel got back in the car, his kids were so excited, “Daddy, daddy! Was that an angel?”
His coat dripped rain and hail onto his seat, but he looked in the rear view mirror with a smile, “I don’t know if he was an angel or not, but remember: God always provides!”
They started driving again, the hail was coming in harder, but the road was smoother than ever. The kids started telling each other the story about the angel who saved them, “He didn’t have no car— just came out of nowhere with two big lights behind— he was so tall, I could be on Daddy’s shoulders and still have to look up— Daddy, what did he say to you? Daddy?”
Joel could make out the hazard lights of a minivan on the side of the road with a family like them— a father, mother, and two small children. “Honey, pull over.” Alma said. The family on the street started waving their hands at them. “We should help them, Joel.” Alma said, turning to look at him, “Joel?”