Homo Storialus

Biologists may classify us as Homo sapiens, “The Wise One”, but I would call us Homo storialus, the animal who tells stories. We tell them through folklore, legend and myth. We then act them out in ritual. It is safe to say that stories plus ritual equal religion. Stories are the threads by which we weave the tapestry of our culture, our religions and traditions.

The literalistic skeptic says: “I don’t want legends. I want facts.” He does not understand the observation made by D. H. Lawrence that there are two kinds of truth, a truth of truth and a truth of facts. A truth of facts has to do with dates, names and places and so forth. But a truth of truth is revealed through legend, myth, folklore and fairy tells and has to do with the inner world of the imagination and emotions. They reveal the inner shape and contour of our minds, our longings and needs, our spirits. We are now entering a beautiful, lovely period of folklore, legend, fantasy and myth.

“We Three Kings of Orient Are” is a perfect example. A beautiful carol, but no one has any idea how many wise men there were. There could have been two or fifty. And they were not Kings and they did not come from as far away as the Orient. They were magicians and came from no further away than Persia. The magicians were not Hebrew and would have been considered pagans. At any rate, through folklore, they and their three camels are with us every Christmas.
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The winter solstice

For thousands of years this period of the Winter Solstice has been the most important date in human celebrations, for the sun has started its long journey home bringing with it Spring and Summer. Celebrating this event today, you and I are part of a line of descent that has been uninterrupted almost from the birth of humankind. There has been no time when someone, somewhere, was not celebrating this date. Long before the birth of Jesus our bloodstream ran in the veins of sun gods and sun worshippers: Greeks and Romans…Barbarians in Germanic forests…Northern worshippers of Thor…Egyptians…Jews…Gauls…Persians and Indians. Considering that our very survival depends upon the return of the sun it is no wonder that human celebrations have been so monumental. No wonder that Julius, the fourth century Pope, when asked to fix a date for the birth of Jesus, said: “we will say it took place in Bethlehem on December 25.” That was the date of the Winter Solstice according to the Julian calendar. Other virgin born gods celebrated during this Solstice period were Marduk, Osiris, Horus, Isis, Mithra, Saturn, Sol and Apollo. And so for thousands of years we have celebrated this date with singing and dancing, with solemn ceremony and flowers, palms, mistletoe and holly, plays and majestic processionals moving through high cathedrals. Christmas, the Solstice, is in our bloodstream. It is in our genes.

I know that the entire season is rooted in mythology, legends, folklore, cultural customs and tradition. I would not deny that. And yet, there is more. It is to enjoy and experience the wonder of it all…the wonder of this solstice season.

“The sense of wonder is our sixth sense” wrote D.H. Lawrence “and it is our most natural sense” Albert Einstein used these words: “The most beautiful thing that we can experience is the mysterious. He who cannot feel this wonder is dead. His eyes and heart are closed.”
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A Zen Jesus for Christmas

In 1945 an Arab peasant in the upper Egyptian desert near Nag Hammadi made a spectacular discovery. Buried in earthenware were 52 papyrus texts, some dating from the beginning of the Christian era and presenting a Jesus who said things that could have come out of the mouth of a Zen Master, or even the Buddha himself.

Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has made the observation that one of these gospels in Particular, “The Gospel of Thomas” includes traditions even older than the Gospels of the New Testament, earlier than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, and also closer to the actual life of Jesus.

These are known as the “Gnostic Gospels”, from the Greek word “gnosis”…meaning “to know”…to know oneself, to have an insight into oneself in an intuitive sense. “To know oneself is to know God”…says Jesus in these gospels. The self and the divine are identical and one. The living Jesus in these gospels speaks of an enlightenment, the same type that is taught by Zen Masters and Taoists. Jesus is never presented as Lord, but rather as a spiritual guide. The living Buddha could easily have said, and did, everything attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas and other texts.
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