by Paul Cudenec
[This is from my latest book Our Quest for Freedom and other essays]
Our culture’s story is a tragic one and has to be told so that we understand the gravity of where we stand – or, rather, where we cower! – today.
But our story, our myth, also tells how we get out of this. It tells us that all the heroes who step forward, regardless of whether they become martyrs, form part of a victorious struggle.
The role of a martyr is not to win a war, but, with their life-sacrificing courage, to encourage others to risk everything for the sake of our freedom.
The role of a myth is not just to tell the story of what has happened to us and what we would like to happen next, but to help make that reality become true.
A myth is no more a mere story than a prophecy is a mere prediction. Both have the purpose of shaping reality, forging the future.
As well as manifesting the archetypal desires within us, they articulate the will with which we can meet those desires.
They are our yearning made explicit, projected ahead of us into the place into which we long to advance.
They are our hope, but not of the kind that passively waits for someone else to come and save us.
They are hope as determination, hope as faith, hope as meaning.
This hope shimmers ahead of us on the path. It is real because we have put it there. It is part of us, in fact, reaching out tentatively to feel and touch the future for which we yearn.
It is our Holy Grail and our own holy essence, the best part of us, combining our sense of righteousness and our will to action, which we send ahead of us to light the way and guide us to greater things.
Our quest is to become again what we always really were.
Our quest is to be free, as individuals, to express all that we are, all that we value, all that we desire.
Our quest is to be free, as communities, to express all that we are, all that we value, all that we desire.
Our quest is to reclaim the power to create our own lives, our own cultures, our own future.
Nobody has the right to take that away from us. Our myth, the joyful expression of our own inspiration, tells us that we are going to seize it back.
Our freedom! Our culture! Our future!
Our Quest for Freedom and other essays can be downloaded for free here or purchased here.
winter oak 