IT BEGINS WITH A STORY: Reading Stories and Telling Stories are Both a Form of Spiritual Seeking - by Richard Payment

 

IT BEGINS WITH A STORY

Reading stories and telling stories are both a form of spiritual seeking.

By Richard Payment

~~~

It always begins with a story.

We all like a story. If it’s a good one, that’s a bonus. If it’s about us, that’s even better.

People read books, watch movies and generally engage in what we call culture for one standout reason: to find out about themselves.

By discovering what makes us laugh, what moves us to tears, what gives us delight, we uncover who we are, where we have come from and what we have the potential to become. We want to measure ourselves against others so that we can become like them — or, better yet, excel in new directions.

At the highest level, we want to know our true Self.

~~

As the performance ended, a man — he might have been a stranger or maybe I’d seen him before and just forgotten — turned to me with an extended hand, a way of offering an introduction. But it was his words that I really noted. His hand, I ignored.

“I am a great fan of your children,” he said.

“Now here is a topic I can get on board with,” I thought. “It is a subject close to my heart.”

“Perhaps,” an inner voice whispered, “he is going to tell you that you are a good father, even the best father. He is, after all, a fan. He said so.”

These are the stories we like the best: the ones that speak about our success. They tell us what we want to hear, what we already know, what we choose to be the truth. Above all, they tell us we are doing it right.

~~~

It was almost a millennium ago. Europe was an isolated place. We did not know the thickness of those walls of ignorance, the fortress that kept the rest

Jack & The Beanstalk

of the world out. We could only imagine what might be beyond. And imagine we did.

Monsters and fantastic animals were imagined, giants and ogres. But there was another kind story that also took hold. It was the tale of Presbyter Ioannes.

This Ioannes, if we go by this Latin name, was a Christian, but we can call him John — Prester John, a common name for an uncommon man. He was the best.

"Preste" as the Emperor of Ethiopia, enthroned on a map of East Africa.

Prester John lived and breathed Christ’s word better than any European — so the story goes. He was finer than any churchman, zealot or saint. He was surely of the Eastern Church, a Nestorian or maybe even father afield, from a Christian nation lost among the Muslims and pagans and two-headed griffins of the Orient.

Prester John did not live in the Garden of Eden. His vale was unknown, but it was thought to be a garden of wisdom. Yes, a garden of wisdom, for some thought him to be a descendent of the Magi, the three Wise Men. He was both a king and a priest — a convincing combination.

John was blessed. He was a voice to heed. Sharply put: John was doing it better than any of us. He was everything that we should aspire to be. He was our own reflection seen in a polished mirror, framed with the purest gold and precious stones. He was, we might say today, our better self.

This is story that had traction. It was something to aspire to, a Heaven-upon-Earth. And the story spread fast because we wanted to hear it. We wanted it

to be true. It was a dream perhaps. But like a dream, it embodied both the familiar and the exotic.

Letters were written and, most amazingly, replies were received. “How can we better ourselves?” we humbly asked. “How can we be closer to God, Christ-like in our actions, thoughts and desires?”

Imagine: an enlightened community just over the hill — or maybe two or three hundred hills — somewhere out there beyond the Holy Land, an isolated sect of Christians doing it right. And doing it right is what every seeker craves. Without wars or envy or sin, truly, Prester John and his fellows understood the way forward.

~~~

In the novel Soothsay, a work of fiction about the search for truth at the turn of the millennium in medieval England, there is full mention of Prester John and the ideal he represented. The search for this itinerant wise man drives the plot. One character, a friar with both imagination and education speaks:

“These people in this distant land, they are like us, but purer still. They are like ourselves, the same, but, only by a simple choice, a higher path have taken.

Prester John in India

And in that divergent route, they are stronger of the heart, more beautiful in compassion’s way. They are ourselves, as we would wish to be in every moment, at every turn. As you say, it is a heaven upon this Earth, the very one we wish to find. And in that finding, we might say, ’Yes, we are not a stranger to your land. We are but simply exiles lost, now here returned. Yes, to our home and brothers, you, we do reunion seek.”

I smiled and felt that of what he spoke was possible. And, in the same, because he spoke, it was both singular and true. His conviction made that land a real place. I could hear its pendants flapping crisply in the breeze. His words were the breath of that fair wind.

“There is talk of a king called John,” he said. He quickly sketched a face upon a page, stern and noble, but not dour. “John is a presbyr distant. Although his name be of gospel source — an apostle and some many saints — it is this John who reigns upon an eastern throne, not a place where you would expect to find such Christian heritage.

“He is of the Nester Church, not of this Christian See. A lost tribe, a brother church, founded by some apostic teaching that reached to exotic shores. And in that land that stands beyond the scope of our bookish knowledge, unrecorded on any map or registry, but not our unfettered imagination, there is a brotherhood and spirit without an earthly bound.”

“One day,” I said, “we will find each other, that land and ours. I know it to be so.”

~~~

Yes, there was once a hope that Prester John would speak to us of our true nature, how to calm our spirit and better our way. Step by step with simple solution, John would share his enlightenment.

This is all not so different from the benevolent alien, the flying saucer invasion, who, to our relief announce, “We come in peace for the benevolence of all.”

We like these stories because they give hope. The answers float feather-like, big snowflakes drifting to our door.

Of course, there was no Prester John. It was a hoax or a dream that played large in a rich broadloom that included the the Apostle Thomas in India, the Ethiopian Christian enclave, pilgrimages, crusades and, of course, the Holy Grail. He was formed from a deep desire to become something better, to ascend to God’s perfection.

Prester John is a story we want to hear because it tells us about ourself, our better Self.

~~~

Soothsay — The Wonderous Journey of Jaedon of Dode in Search of a Bird Now Vanished (Richard Payment, 2016) weaves the themes of Prester John into a story of spiritual seeking. Find out more.

NEXT TIME: Kahlil Gibran and how fiction can reach for higher truth.