“Once upon a time.” From our very earliest ages, that’s how we’ve been taught to begin a story. Those four words have given rise to thousands of fairy tales—through which we teach kindness, orient our moral compasses, and build communities that last.
We need these stories to understand ourselves. But according to mythographer Martin Shaw, we are losing touch with them, allowing ancient wisdom to be eclipsed by the superficiality of our hyper-technological age.
You may remember Martin from his stunning essay on Christmas Eve, about his unexpected conversion to Christianity while approaching the age of 50. Since then, Martin has traveled the world, bringing ancient myths to contemporary audiences, seeking to combat what he sees as a destructive cultural amnesia about the values that shape our civilization.
Now, Martin has compiled those stories into a forthcoming book, Liturgies of the Wild, which debuts on February 3. We’re honored to run the exclusive excerpt. In it, he tackles one of the most important aspects of being human, one we instinctively turn away from: the reality that our lives will end. As medicine advances and religion recedes, we grow ever more uneasy about death, and do everything in our power to ignore it. But that is not, Martin writes, how it was ever meant to be. —The Editors
Once upon a time, a worn-out man with 13 kids was walking a lonely road. He met a stranger and asked him to be the godfather for his youngest child. The stranger revealed that he was God, and the man changed his mind, as he felt God had allowed his grievous poverty. He walked on and asked another man. This grinning fellow was the Devil, and the father took back the offer and hurried on. Finally, the man met Death. Because Death took from both rich and poor, the father thought this fair, and asked him to be the godfather. Death tilted his head in the half-light and agreed.
