Symbols & Substance

The story is told of a primitive tribe which, when struck with an epidemic involving high fever, was given large bottles of aspirin to disseminate. Instead, they built shrines around the bottles and made them articles of worship rather than ingesting the healing contents.

You recall awhile back that, as a congregation, we voted to focus on "Spiritual Growth", and then immediately set out to debate what "spiritual" meant. (I guess we understood the "growth" part). Being a rather cerebral group, we're good at doing this same thing with "God", "Grace", "Christ" or "the Christ", "Prayer", or what-have-you, seeming to need to classify, categorize, judge, and then defend or deny. With our apparent need to

"name it", we not only risk raising red flags for each other but may also be diverted from focusing on the important truths that might be learned.

The late Joseph Campbell, in a PBS interview, said that "the ultimate mystery of being is beyond all categories of thought. Therefore, the best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best cannot be understood. The third best are what we talk about." He added, "What can't be known, can't be named except in our own feeble efforts to clothe it in language."

Perhaps this is why myths and metaphors play such a large part in the religions of the world, including our own. Every religion is true in terms of metaphor. So rather than deny or throw out what cannot be known in literal or concrete terms, might it be more beneficial to ask, "Does this contain something that might be helpful to me?" or "What is the truth that this story teaches?" Perhaps in this way, symbols will not be allowed to cloud our vision of substance, and may even, at times, enhance the understanding of our faith.