Death of the Hero – Thoughts on Story
Essays, Featured — By Pete Gall on October 19, 2009 at 12:01 am
What follows is an excerpted chapter (probably not the final version, but the one I have on my laptop) from My Beautiful Idol. I offer it as a caveat and discussion point to the topic of Story that is being explored here and in many areas of our subculture.
I wrote my book with Robert McKee’s Story and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey nearby (though Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird probably had an even greater impact on me from a heart, rather than craft, perspective), and I was very intentional about creating gatekeeper characters, a variety of internal and external obstacles, and an evolving version of what the protagonist wanted.
What I learned is that while The Hero’s Journey – the format that’s used in the vast majority of our stories and was well explored by Joseph Campbell – is great for stories, and even for envisioning goals in our own lives, it assumes a few things that I’ve never been able to bring to the living story.
1. Rational objectivity. However much insight I may gain, and however much education I may acquire, I still tend to be governed by my appetites and by the irrational fears, vows and conclusions I’ve reached in my past life. I can set a very reasoned goal, but my irrational – sinful – self is bent and will always create inconsistencies in my efforts. In the end, we tend to get what we deeply pursue, but I don’t think most people have any idea what their deep pursuits are, no matter how passionately they may be headed in a given direction. I believe people are far more like “trickster” characters than heroes – we move with passion and purpose, but not objectively, not consistently, and only rarely in alignment with even our own best interests.
2. Control. I am a contingent being, and more than that, I have invited my Maker to be my Lord, which means that my view across the landscape of my own life is obscured, and my best plans must always be qualified with “if it is the Lord’s will.” In my experience, the more vigorously I aim myself at a specific and clearly defined objective – the faster I run – the more dramatic is my wipe-out when God causes me to make a turn.
3. An Ending. There are aspects to my story that begin and end and can be packaged neatly enough if I keep my focus narrow enough. But my life is broader than those individual threads, and multiple threads run at the same time, with different beginnings and endings and clumsy ways of overlapping. Worse than that, my entire life is just one thread itself, and it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t wrap up in a satisfying manner (where the questions get answered), and certainly isn’t comprised of threads that all run in the same direction. I will die with things left unfinished. I will not complete the task and then coast to a slow fade out as the music comes up and the credits roll. I find this to be a frustrating reality – but I know that the cause has to do with my life being part of a greater story (my part in the story is totally worth my full effort and attention, but the story is not my own).
I believe the history of humanity is the history of us putting anything we can find between ourselves and the God whose love defines us. From fig leaves to laws to judges to kings to priests to doctrine to platforms – with a variety of sciences, therapies, patriotic expressions and leveraged claims to undue victimization woven throughout – we seem to want to pull away from God and define our own adventures. Of course this is partially due to our sinful state, and partially due to heretical teachings that have made God less than attractive (how is this possible?) – but whatever the cause, part of trying to make ourselves our own gods includes a deep desire to have our individual stories stand tall and independent from His, even if we look to Him for rescue and blessing in our idolatry.
Here’s what I mean…
Chapter 41. Death of the Hero (from My Beautiful Idol, by Pete Gall)
Here’s the rule for how stories are supposed to go. The hero begins in their ordinary world, like Frodo living in the Shire or Luke Skywalker fixing droids in the desert. A crisis is introduced, often by a gatekeeper character who explains that the hero must leave the ordinary world to slay a dragon or find a magic elixir or do some other remarkable thing to save the people of the ordinary world. The hero wishes there could be some other way, but strikes out into the adventure because there is no other way. Everything rides on the ordinary character successfully performing the new role of hero.
12 Comments
take THAT Joseph Campbell. Where’s your power of myth now?
But isn’t this all kind of a mix up? Sin isn’t irrational, it’s quite natural and normal. Faith is irrational.
I think we might have a paradox here…
Hey Pete, I’ve always thought sin to be irrational too. It’s twin, self justification, make for an evil pair. It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly sane and rational people can construct the most bizarre rationale for their sin, even in the midst of a relational train wreck. It amazes me even more when I do it. May God grant us repentance over understanding.
I also appreciate your introduction of meta-narrative in point 3. Important stuff.
Doh. Sorry Dylan for the technical gaffe. I meant to post a comment independent of yours.
There are certainly some important points here, but it seems too reductionist. The way Campbell and Tolkien wrote about the hero’s journey is a good bit different than the way it’s described here. I agree that the journey has been distorted, repackaged, and sold as self-idolatry, but that’s not what good story writers impart. The hero’s journey is more about growth and sacrifice than becoming superhuman. Frodo and Luke sacrifice so everyone else can be happy. Everyone else gets to marry and go on with life. Frodo is wounded. He couldn’t even bring himself to destroy the ring without divine intervention. Being misunderstood because of your trials and insights isn’t what a narcissist is after. Becoming a hero means discovering your limitations, admitting your sin. I understand that by the time the Promise Keepers get ahold of this metaphor that it becomes about accomplishment and toughness, but I think the real hero myth is much closer to the Christian story.
Even though resolution and the happy ending are seldom realized in this life, I agree with Tolkien (in “Fairy Stories”) that these things speak to a deeper longing. We like stories like LOTR and Star Wars because a deep, unfallen part of us longs for everything to be made whole again. While I think it’s crucial that we have stories that deal with the reality of human loss, sin, frustration, and suffering, we also need the ones that speak to our longing for good. Sometimes that’s self-indulgent, but, when the stories are well told, they inspire us to transcend our selfish appetites and work toward something higher.
I love your writing, Pete.
I do have a couple thoughts. I think the principles of story can provide a metaphor for sanctification, but every metaphor has its limits. You might have exposed a few of those limits.
My bigger thought was how does one go about classifying anyone a hero or failure when we all have more life ahead of us? There are more twists and challenges ahead. I have failed at many things in life, writing included. My last book flopped from the day it was released. I have a choice to view myself as a failure or a guy that failed. As much as it sucks I prefer the later as it leaves room for hope and hard work.
The value of the story metaphor is that it gives us a handle on what it means to work out our salvation in conjunction with the One who is working mightly in us.
Thank you for interacting with my thoughts – a great reward for me.
Dylan:
I think sin is definitely irrational, and that faith is the absolutely most sane thing in the world. I sin in spite of what I know and what I will to do – there is a heart/affection/appetite problem within me that continually shows up with every sin. I do what I do not want to do, and I do not do the things I want to do. (check out Romans 8 as another instance of somebody experiencing the same dilemma)
As to faith being irrational, I will grant you that in many ways faith is not *merely* rational – though to the extent that a person experiences the reality of God, a matter of fact, objective and rational aspect becomes evident. Faith is not born of mind or will, but from a relational/affection engagement. This reality has often been abused by lazy minds who deflect exploration of faith by playing a lame sentimental card, and in those instances it’s common to see faith described as irrational. But faith has to do with relationship. I love my wife for reasons that go beyond reason, but the affections are real. In this sense, my love is not rational in that it is not merely rational, but I’d be a dipshit husband indeed if I loved my wife in an irrational (meaning opposed or devoid of clarity or coherence) way.
As to what is natural, sin is natural in that it comes with such regularity and is so ubiquitous in the world that it is certainly par for the course and to be expected. It is normal to us. But that hardly makes it good, rational, or puts its expressions in accordance with the deeper truths of life.
Steve:
You are absolutely right about the reduction of what I’ve written. You are also right that the model gets squeezed to serve the philosophical mandates of human/idolatrous/narcissistic endeavors – and the chapter is lifted from within a book that’s making points along those lines.
Whether there remain unfallen parts of ourselves, or our craving comes because we know God’s voice and our response is an imparted response, I agree that there is some sort of homesickness within us, some sort of “memory of Eden,” if you will. There is incredible value in speaking of our longed-for destination, the rigors of the journey there, and the One who turns out to be the reward in both. The consolation, the peace, the rest, that comes is not a rest to be earned, but a rest to be received – and not apart from God, but IN Him.
That’s where I see the struggle in the Hero’s journey. Jesus was not motivated by self-awareness, transcendence, power, or the reward (nor even a specific outcome – though he was very interested in specific obedience). He was captivated by his love for his Father. He found his rest within the trials there, in the relationship that defined him. You could build a similar summary about Luke and his relationship with Obi, or Frodo and his connection with Gandolf. The Hero’s Journey is built to appeal to the person watching from the outside – and maybe this is a good way to play to certain vanities to inspire motion – but the Hero’s Journey is not the story that the hero character would sketch from within the story. As the person moves, as the hero becomes the hero, the “hero-ness” needs to be off-loaded, given away to the Father, or a significant perversion happens.
I’ve been reading through the Old Testament lately, and I’ve loved Moses. In Exodus 17, the people are thirsty and they say to their hero, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
The grumbling of the Israelites is a story unto itself, as is the Father’s loving response to each of their complaints, and I think about how much Moses has already been through as their servant and leader – the flight from the royal household, the years as a stranger in the desert, the burning bush and the plagues with Pharaoh, and such – and how the complaints would have felt to him (not unlike how Sam Gamgee sometimes sounded to Frodo).
Moses the hero turns to God and says, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
God replies, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.”
Pretty good trick, and Moses summarizes this testing of God with a question to the elders: “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Luke lifts the X-wing from the swamp and Yoda says “the force is strong with you, young Paduan.” (I don’t know if that’s what he says there, but you’ve heard it said.)
Skip forward to Numbers 20 with Moses the hero. There was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron leave the people and go to God, who says “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”
So Moses and Aaron gather the people in front of the rock and Moses the hero says “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses struck the rock with his staff and water gushed out and the people and their livestock drank.
That sounds just like what the hero should and would do, but here’s the point where the perversion of not diverting the hero’s magic to the Father slams down.
Numbers 20:12 – “But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’”
Moses spends the rest of his life as a servant and leader – and in so many ways a remarkable hero – and he gets to see the Promised Land from the mountain where he dies, but he never gets the Hero’s reward and never gets to inherit the Promised Land.
We long for Eden. We long for a Promised Land. We long for the Hero’s journey and the Hero’s reward. We long for self awareness and transcendence – and these things are especially potent in our current therapeutic age (therapy being a tool, not an alternative). We will be invited to journey, and surely we will do great things (Jesus says even greater wonders than what he performed), and there will be times when we look like heroes – when water will pour from the rock and feed the people. But the true hero will always and only be the God whose love and whose passion for His people will cause Him to journey through disappointment, sorrow, frustration, rejection and injustice for the sake of offering the best and purest joy to us, for the delight He finds within it.
This is what I believe I’m being taught. And I offer the thoughts in love with open hands – I might be right, but if I’m right it’s surely not because the staff and the rock are mine.
Larry:
I believe the very terms “hero” and “failure” are rooted in a worldview that focuses on substance rather than relationship, and outcomes above obedience. This worldview is a horribly cruel one, and it certainly punishes people by applying outcomes-oriented labels (a flop is a flop, but that doesn’t mean squat about the value of the product, the journey or how God is met and loved) to obedience-oriented living. Cutting in the other direction, this substance-based worldview, this outcomes-based worldview, creates miserable prisons for people who experience applause and are suddenly thrust onto pedestals that set them up for painful falls later, or that make obedience harder (man cannot serve two masters/Tyler Durden’s comment in Fight Club about “what you own ends up owning you”).
We live a story, so of course our sanctification will happen within an unfolding context. There are promises from our God that take time – God can and sometimes does heal all at once, but most of the time it takes time (whether we’re talking addictions or colds). For me, the challenge has a lot to do with embracing the “amens” of life that allow for mystery, for suffering, and for aspects of my story that force me to see that my story isn’t really my own. I am a deeply addicted idolator – I want to decide who God is and what He’s like – and I feel very threatened by the things that tempt me to embrace that tendency in myself.
No question we are on a journey. No question that as people who are “more than conquerors” there as hero aspects to what we will encounter. The true freedom, the true joy, that can be ours (the life more abundant – which is not the same thing as life more full of sunsets, wealth and good food, I’m finally realizing) comes not from what we do, but from what shoots through us and wraps about us and welcomes us home when we lay it into our Father’s hands.
This, at any rate, is the longing that is reshaping my own journey.
“But that hardly makes it good, rational, or puts its expressions in accordance with the deeper truths of life.”
I never said anything about sin being good, but the natural thing usually precedes the rational. I’m not sure why how you get the opposite from Romans 8, because even there he writes “Those who live according to the sinful NATURE have their minds set on what that NATURE desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
And faith is not just another relationship. A relationship with God is way different than a relationship with a wife. That you associated the two is dumbfounding. God is spiritual. You don’t see him. Having faith in him is something you can only do through irrationality. If you rationalize faith, it ceases to be faith (it become just a solved math equation). You would definitely be a dipshit husband if you loved your wife irrationally, because she’s right there in front of you and you don’t need to take any leaps of faith in order to believe in her. God is quite another matter.
Dylan -
Hey man, I’m sorry if my comment came across in a way that landed sideways with you – I’m not trying to win a match here, and I’m certainly not wanting to make this a hostile interaction. Please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood your point.
What I was interacting with was this, and the proposal that there could be a paradox at work:
“But isn’t this all kind of a mix up? Sin isn’t irrational, it’s quite natural and normal. Faith is irrational.”
What I was reading – and again, please accept my apologies if I’m mistaking your point – was that sin is not irrational. I was reading you as saying sin is not irrational because it is natural and normal, with normal helping me understand what sort of natural you meant – where natural means normative, ordinary, etc, and not rooted in a particular nature (flesh vs spirit as Paul writes in Romans). I assumed that you would not call sin good, even if it is normal, and I apologize that my comments could be read to imply otherwise.
I also apologize if my use of a marital love feels unfair or heretical or illogical – maybe it is too human-based a way of expressing the idea. I think, though, that there are enough instances where we read about the Bride of Christ and find other instances where marriage serves as a sort of lens into the relationship of the Trinity that the problem was probably my application rather than the assumption that a marital love could give insight into interaction with God.
I do hear your resistance to Cartesian thought when you talk about rationalized faith being similar to solving a math equation. The type of God who passes through the Cartesian filter – the Aristotelian unmoved mover who is more fixated on His power and glory than upon His love and goodness – has been an heretical bane in the Church for quite some time, and I believe this root heresy is also the cause of most of the pain that has emergents and others looking for some alternative to the abusive, merely rational “faith” we’ve inherited.
I guess here’s another way I’d look at sin and faith – another word instead of irrational. When I think of irrational, there is the sense where I can mean “not rational” – lacking normal mental clarity or coherence – as though opposed to rational thought or reason. One synonym would be “absurd,” and in more diagnostic terms, we may see people who were neurotic/psychotic (with distorted perceptions of reality) as irrational. Let’s pick “absurd.” Sin is absurd. I sin from deeply irrational, absurd places.
Faith, however, is not absurd. Perhaps to your point, it is not irrational, but it does have aspects that are a-rational, in the same way that an asexual being is neither distinctly male nor distinctly female. Faith makes room for mysteries that go beyond the rational, and in this sense insisting upon the tools of rationality itself becomes irrational (engaging faith in a merely rational manner would be like trying to measure smell with a yardstick). At a certain point, rationality fails when it comes to encountering God (or any relationship, when we come down to it).
I don’t assume that you believe faith is absurd, or that the “leap” is only made by mad people.
Does it turn out that you and I are saying pretty much the same thing, Dylan? If so, do you still see a paradox in the blog post’s ideas? And if so, can you help me see it, too?
Arational works. Sorry if I came across hostile. I just have no tolerance for “faith makes sense” theologies. But are you just trying to meet me halfway or do you really believe now that faith is arational? That would mean NOT rational.
I’ll go ahead and explain myself a bit though. Irrational isn’t always bad, rational isn’t always good. Particularly in the case of faith. So that’s that. I’m not saying that faith is bad or weak, just irrational. And actually, faith might also be absurd. Faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. That’s certainly not rational or natural. When you have faith, you do so from deeply irrational, absurd places. When you sin, you do so from very natural, carnal places. We were born with sin, not with faith. I guess I’m doing the old “existence precedes essence” thing to you.
I’m definitely not going to get into the emergent discussion.
But if we’re saying pretty much the same thing, we’re both saying that faith is NOT rational and that sin is not irrational. That’s what I’m saying. Is that what you’re saying?
I’m laughing now. I think we’re going to have to leverage arational pretty hard, and I’m okay with that. Throwing “good” and “bad” into the mix is a whole new thing that I’m going to avoid and chalk up to something we can explore face to face sometime.
My faith does not come from my mind or my will, but from my heart. In that sense is it not rationally derived. That said, there is a “rightness” I experience in my heart that flows to my mind and will, and in that, “it follows” that my faith exists. I think that faith based purely and merely in the mind or will – in straight rationality – is probably better described as dogma. I think we’re on similar pages with this. Yes?
When I talk about what I experience in my heart, what I am really talking about is love. God is a relational being, not a set of capitalized principles. He is not an unmoved mover. What quickens faith is love searching and meeting love, and love is not subject to rationality. Neither, though, is love irrational or absurd. It is arational, and love makes sense when love makes sense, and ranges further much of the time.
Our sin ultimately through the same affective and evaluative faculties as our faith – we’re talking about which love wins and guides the heart. You may be familiar with the Puritan Thomas Chalmers’ sermon on the Expulsive Power of a New Affection. The basic gist is that we will be drawn to whatever we love most. I would also point you to the blog of former Multnomah Seminary professor Ron Frost – http://spreadinggoodness.org – for more on this stuff. The current post is from Steve Mitchell, who commented into your first reply earlier.
My faith comes from an arational place as far as my experience of it is concerned, but if God is real then my faith grows upon the One who creates reality, and the One who is Logos and order. While there will always be mysteries on my end where my faith is concerned, as my faith grows, it grows upon the framework of ultimate Truth. It becomes more stable and more “real” as it grows. My experience of love has looked like this in other instances, too, and while I’ll grant you a relationship with God is not just another relationship, the part I play in either relationships with people or the posture and interaction I experience with God has an awful lot to do with love.
The flipside, and here I think we may end up disagreeing, my sin may come from what looks like concrete logic, but it will always be built upon profound lies of self-orientation and delusion, which means that even beyond the confusion I feel about my own inconsistencies and self-sabotage, my sin is ultimately predicated on lies, and it will grow increasingly irrational.
We obviously have some equivocation challenges in this discussion, so I am willing to say that faith “looks” irrational and sin often “looks” rational, and it’s hardly uncommon for either to be held firmly this way even unto death.
Gotta roll. Thanks for your interaction today Dylan. Peace.
Dylan –
One last thing, just to put the right tone on this. I just visited your site. We have the same favorite movie, so I know I can quote Walter to let you know how I DON’T want this interaction to go:
“Am I wrong?”
“No, you’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.”
I feel a little worn out from today – like I learned some lesson about talking religion or politics. My desire with the blog post was really just to share some thoughts and a sample chapter from my book because of the discussion Miller’s book has rolling. I would rather have met and watched the Big Lebowski with you. What are you doing tomorrow?
We disagree about sin, but I don’t mind ending it here, because I like this sentence: “faith “looks” irrational and sin often “looks” rational” Therein might be that paradox I was originally talking about.
And I have no qualms about love. I’m with you there. (as long as we’re not confusing love and faith with each other)
I’ll be writing tomorrow. Maybe I’ll go to a coffee shop. Where are you at?