Two weeks ago, I went to see the Odyssey at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. The showing was sold out, and the theater was electric with excitement. Before the movie began, I heard folks whispering about how “real” everything would be. Christopher Nolan used a puppet for the cyclops, sent his actors trekking up hills to film scenes, joined them on boats thrashing around on the sea. Very few computer-generated images were used. As the lights dimmed, I was delighted to be surrounded by people excited to watch a 2,800-year-old story told by real people in real places dealing with real objects.
Of course, you and I live our lives anchored by an ancient story which is older than time itself. Every day at Morning and Evening Prayer, and every Sunday at mass, we hear the stories of our spiritual ancestors as they search for God in a broken, fallen world. We hear those stories told by them, according to their own understanding. We pray using their words, reaching for the same God they knew. The longer we steep ourselves in these ancient stories, two essential truths become clear: our forebears are not so different from us, and we have a lot to learn from them.
We like to imagine that humanity is constantly improving, on a never-flagging upward trajectory, better with every passing decade. But the truth is, we gain and lose wisdom all the time. Yes, there are gifts of modernity for which I would never trade. And, our ancestors knew so much that humanity has forgotten.
In his essay “On the Reading of Old Books,” C.S. Lewis writes this: “Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.”
Which is to say, perhaps one of the wonderful gifts ancient stories gives us is perspective. Old stories call into question that which you and I presume to be true. They challenge our presumptions. And, they help us open our eyes to realities of the present moment to which we have become blind.
Lewis reminds us that the blindness of our own time will become all too clear to those who come after us. They will read our writings, study our films, watch our TikToks (God, help us), and think, “How could they possibly have believed that?” I hope that our descendants will look to us with grace, forgiving our blindness, listening for the wisdom we do not know we carry.
Our best wisdom is found in the ancient story we tell, which is unfolding even now, the story which began “in the beginning” and will carry us to the “fullness of time.” And how do we tell this mysterious story? Like Christopher Nolan, we tell it with real people, in a real sacred space, worshipping with real bread and wine and incense and fire.
Perhaps the excitement around the Odyssey has shown us that we are stewards of something for which the world is so hungry. Perhaps we find ourselves in a cultural moment primed to receive the very gift we enjoy every day at Good Shepherd. Perhaps this is just the time to extend the invitation to experience the greatest story ever told.