A colleague sent me this quote the other day. He said that it had really helped him through life and as he faced changes and retirement, and it also helped him follow his bliss and find what he really wanted to do.
“The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousness.”
- Joseph Campbell, “The Power of Myth”
As wise as this may sound, I have to resist. It's Eastern religion based, in its disdain, really, for the body (not a Christian view) and its idea of death, "consciousness rejoins consciousness." Hummmm.
The question in the center is the the one that determines the rest. Am I the bulb that carries the light or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle. We are both. We are a soul in a body; a consciousness, if I have to put it that way, in physicality, if we must use that ungainly term. Unlike what many Christians think, our physical bodies are not curses, will rise again, allow us to serve, and give us pleasure. John, especially, wants us to know that Jesus came in the flesh. They saw him and walked with him before and after the cross. Being physically existent is good, and has been.
And I've known a lot of elderly people, and body parts don't fall off. They lose some of their strength, and sometimes have to be removed due to illness, but we are not cars. The image of my "fender" falling off, well, is horrifying yet funny.
I supposed I should get over it and say, hey, if this piece of Campbell's world view gives you meaning, that's cool. But, there is a better way. Unfortunately that better way has been misexplained by a lot of well meaning people. It is a way that reconciles us to God, from whom we are alienated, and gives us hope. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, found in four readable books by those of his own time.
I've been thinking about hope today, so here is a scripture that empowers more than Campbell:
Lamentations 3
Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the bitterness.
20 My soul still remembers them,
and is bowed down within me.
21 This I recall to my mind;
therefore I have hope.
22 It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed,
because his compassion doesn’t fail.
23 They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
24 “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul.
“Therefore I will hope in him.”
25 Yahweh is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that a man should hope
and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
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