Lifting The Veil

The Hidden Power of Myths

The world is filled with wonder. The sight of a Redwood tree towering over you like an ancient monument. The sound of the waves endlessly crashing upon the beaten rocks. The sweet fragrance of wild flowers in the springtime. The surprising zing of fresh honey on the tongue.

But what do you do when these wonders stop feeling wonderful? What happens when the sounds are muffled, the signs are muted and the tastes become monotonous?

Hold up. Let’s back up for a moment. How do we even get to this point in life? How can something that once stirred up so much awe now seem so mundane to us? To be blunt: Why do we get bored with this beautiful life?

I think the best word to describe it is familiarity. We’ve seen thousands of Redwoods. We’ve spent hours on the beach. We’ve walked through miles of flowers. We’ve eaten our fill of honey. It’s not new to us anymore — and because it’s not new, it has become common.

The definition of familiarity sheds a surprising light on this reality: “a thorough knowledge or mastery of a thing, subject.” I don’t think we get bored with life because we have figured out everything about the things around us. I think we get bored with life because we think we know everything there is to know about the things around us. The jovial “Yeah, yeah — I’ve already seen it” statement has been brewing in our hearts long before it is ever uttered out of our mouths. We take for granted the sights and sounds, colors and smells, people and opportunities.

And this is where I have found the power of stories to be something of an eye-opener to this problem. In reading good fiction, I have come to see the world around me in a fresh way — where the mundane was re-awakened to be miraculous.

Listen to what C.S. Lewis says about this:

“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’”

Lewis understood the true power of myth and stories. Many of us (especially and unfortunately the older you get) are tempted to think that fiction is a waste of time (fun fact: I was the person saying this a few years ago!) because it pulls us away from reality and into fantasy lands of make-believe. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Or at least it’s not the full truth. Stories do pull us away from reality — but if they are written well, they cast us back into our reality with a fresh wonder and hunger. We enter back in seeing the old thing in new ways.

Lewis continues:

“The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is bufalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savoury for having been dipped in a story; you might say that only then is it real meat. If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.”

What a stunning thought; “We don’t retreat from reality; we rediscover it.” This is what I have loved about reading Tolkien — his stories pull me out of my everyday reality just long enough so that when I re-enter, I do so with an imagination that is set on fire. This might sound silly for some. How can a story about elves, hobbits and a magic ring have anything to bear on our actual lived reality?

The power of a good story is that it is grounded in real truth. For Tolkien, his world, Middle-earth, was an extension of the world we live in now — just in the distant past. The themes of love and despair, courage and cowardice, beauty and terror, life and mortality — they are all real things we encounter. The hobbits and elves are just creative vessels that carry our lived human experience with a fresh coat of paint — and because the truth is colored and covered in myth, it has a greater chance of re-enchanting us to its potency.

Tolkien references this thought in his essay “On Fairy Stories”:

“Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them”–as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity–from possessiveness.”

We have such a great need for our windows to be cleaned. For many of us, the daily pressures of work, the despairing realities on the news and the difficulties with relationships are enough to beat the joy and gratitude right out of us. We become calloused, straight-faced and somber. We take ourselves too seriously.

There is no doubt that life is hard and this world is broken. But I believe with all my heart that God made this world to be enjoyed, that He is good and there is beauty worth fighting to see all around us. You don’t have to travel overseas or drastically change your circumstances in order to rekindle a love for life.

Maybe it’s time we stop seeing wonder and awe as a luxury. Maybe we should start seeing it as the way we were created to live — that it’s necessary in order to navigate through this life — that it is actually the fuel for gratitude, joy and love. Being bored with life and asleep to its beauty should not be an option we settle for.

May we be on guard against the cooling voice of familiarity. Pick up a good story. Get lost in the beauty and let it re-awaken you to the enchanted world we get to call home.