Monday, May 16, 2005

Widescreen

When I am asked to explain the community that I belong to - The Order of Mission - I often say that it is part being a Jedi, part one of the Company of the Ring. It is more than that - much more - but I'm not joking when I say that.

A myth is a story that transcends the original context in which it was told. Although most people assume that a myth is made up, it can be a true story; although most people assume that a myth is fictional, it can be historical. The Bible is the greatest myth ever told...precisely because it is true.

We are created to need myth, to need to enter into myth, and every age has been fuelled by its own. Modernity was, and still is, fuelled by myth - the British Empire, the American Dream, the Thousand Year Third Reich, the New World Order. Philosophical Postmodernists - such as Foucault and Derrida - thought all mythology to be a means of exercising power, a means by which rulers exercised control over others; and sought to deconstruct the idea of myth, to liberate the masses from its tyranny. But the greatest postmodern philosophers - such as Lucas, Spielberg and Jackson - recognise that we are created to enter into myth, and they have dreamed dreams and invited a generation to enter into them...

When Gandalf stands defiant on the bridge of Khazad-dum and declares to the Balrog, "You shall not pass!"; when Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi faces Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, declares that "If you cut me down, I will only become more powerful", and de-activates his lightsaber; they tap-into the Kingdom principle that death leads to resurrection, that "Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it gives rise to a harvest, thirty-, sixty- or a hundred-fold."

I am a monastic warrior, caught-up in a battle between Good and Evil, empowered by a force that fills the universe, and committed to train disciples in the Way. I am a member of a covanant community, brought together to achieve what none of us can acheive on our own, putting aside our differences for the sake of the world. I am a Jedi. I am a member of the Company of the Ring. I am a disciple of Jesus. I am a member of The Order of Mission.

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