Dear Friends,

All over the world and at different times in human history archetypes or elementary ideas have appeared in different costumes. The creation story in the book of Genesis has a similar parallel theme in the native spiritual traditions of the American mid-west. The story that we know of Noah and the flood is likewise replicated in ancient writings of Sumer. Tales of virgin births run freely in Greek mythology and even Alexander the Great himself, the story is told, was conceived by a virgin. These archetypes, these underlying mythological stories and concepts help us to understand the world around us and to enter a process by which we become human. They allow us, through interpretation to be engaged and brought into the community so that the telling of the story becomes our story and we become part of a tribe.

Professor Turnbull was a anthropologist who worked in Borneo with the indigenous population. He recorded a particular custom that took place before the birth of each child. The parents would repair to the forest weeks in advance where they would pick a special spot for the child to be born. Even more interesting, however, was the tradition of during these weeks of preparation that the parents would compose and sing a unique lullaby that named the child and told the child’s history in relation to the community. After the birth the parents and the newborn would return to the community and teach this new song to all of the members. The effect being, that everyone had a song which everyone knew and it would be sung when the child or adult was breeching some community standard. Members of the tribe were literally sung back into being and sung back into the group.

A common archetype to the Jewish-Muslim-Christian traditions is the second creation story found in Genesis 2:19-20. "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was it’s name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every beast of the field:" The world does not come with labels attached. Like Adam, we attach them and sometimes we forget we did so. One of the fascinating aspects of the ‘new world’ since September 11^th is the exposure to and dialogue with the peoples of the world. As we are witness to the never-ending theme of war, devastation and destruction are we being awakened to the archetypes present in other cultures, particularly Muslim cultures, specifically the peoples of Afghanistan. Even though words do not have fixed meanings when we see a person in the posture of prayer can we sense the presence of the Divine singing a new world lullaby? When we do not understand the language, do we know from the vacant stares of children in refugee camps what hopelessness looks like? The image of an old man crying for his dead children and grandchildren speaks volumes to the universal experience of grief. Have we forgotten who we are and to whom we belong? Where is the over-arching will of the human spirit to free itself and to rise like the Phoenix of old from the ashes?

As Adam named the world are we also not called to names those things, those acts, those experiences that bring forth the very best of human nature? And are we equally not called to name those things that break our Global Village apart? When war has been our argument and blood our resolve have we forgotten that we are children of the same Spirit, creatures of God, Allah, Yhwh? Can we not make time to learn each others cultural lullaby’s and fill the world with mirth and melody? Like those children of the forest that Turnbull speaks of have we abandoned the tradition of learning about each others uniqueness? Even though we might dress differently, look differently, speak differently we are connected to far more things in common than we are to those things that apparently separate us. Underneath us all is the quest for life and if we would strip away our cultural masks and our environmental preoccupations we will discover humans being. I wonder what kind of world we would live in if we would return to a time when we knew each others stories and sang each others songs?

In Christ,
 

Shaun E. Fryday