{"id":30632,"date":"2023-01-30T06:41:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T14:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30632"},"modified":"2023-02-13T16:26:59","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T00:26:59","slug":"ua-mau-ke-ea-o-ka-%ca%bbaina-i-ka-pono-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/ua-mau-ke-ea-o-ka-%ca%bbaina-i-ka-pono-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Ua Mau ke Ea o ka \u02bb\u0100ina i ka Pono"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have two things in common with Joseph Campbell, we both grew up as Catholic\/Animists. As a reminder, \u201cAnimism is the belief that everything has a soul or spirit, an anima in Latin, including animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, and stars. Animists believe each anima is a powerful spirit that can help or hurt them and are to be worshiped or feared or in some way attended to. \u201c[1]<\/a> \u00a0Unlike Campbell, I am not such a great storyteller, but here it goes.<\/p>\n

Ua Mau ke Ea o ka \u02bb\u0100ina i ka Pono<\/strong> is a Hawaiian phrase, spoken by Kamehameha III, and adopted in 1959 as the state motto. \u00a0It is most commonly translated as “the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Syncretism, the amalgamations of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought, is fairly common in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Jesus, unfortunately, was a picture of a bearded white guy in our Catholic Church hall far removed from reality, while Pele (pronounced peh leh) was pouring lava out of the volcano \u2013 Kilauea on the island of Hawaii.\u00a0 On a personal level, on my visit to Kilauea, I could feel the heat radiating from the lava and smell the acrid sulfur of the VOG (volcanic fog).\u00a0 Back on my island of Oahu, when the earth would shake and we would huddle under our school tables, just like we did for the atomic bomb drills. It was okay to believe in both religious systems (Catholicism and Animism). \u00a0\u00a0As a Pacific Ocean melting pot of Asian and Polynesian cultures, syncretism has always been readily apparent in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The redeeming part of my story is about Chiefess Kapiolani. \u00a0In 1825, Kapiolani, challenged the Hawaiian Kapu system.\u00a0 The Kapu system was a strict legal system that governed the lives of Hawaiians.\u00a0 There is story told that it was Kapu (forbidden) for women to eat bananas.\u00a0 Kapiolani ordered one of her servants to get her a banana.\u00a0 When it was discovered that she ate a banana, she was not punished, but the servant was sacrificed. Yup, harsh stuff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As adult and a converted Christian, Kapiolani sought to replace the Kapu system and to dismantle the religious beliefs in \u201cnature gods\u201d.\u00a0 She did so by climbing Kilauea and hurling rocks into the caldera. The Pele priestesses who saw her coming, warned her that she would be killed by Pele if she proceeded further.\u00a0 Kapiolani prayed before proceeding and many pictures have her holding the bible in her hand. Confronting Pele with the word of God.\u00a0 The literature of the time compared her to Elisha and the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings18). Perhaps appropriately her name ka pi’o lani means \u00a0“heavenly arch” in the Hawaiian language.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Campbell does a massive job of gathering myths from around the world.\u00a0 Additionally, there more than 61 videos on you tube chronicling his beliefs.\u00a0 While I think his \u201celements of a good story\u201d are spot on, I wonder about his other \u201cunsaid messages.\u201d It appeared to me that Campbell was a Catholic\/Animist. In his interviews he aligned different belief systems in what seemed to be a New Age harmony. Alarmingly I could see how his thoughts could encourage other academics\/writers\/students in coming to the place where all paths lead to God. In one video he said that \u201cChrist in us\u201d was like the a similar practice with the Hindu worship of Shiva. He left the viewer thinking, that Christ was a valuable myth.<\/p>\n

The Monomyth is a term coined by Joseph Campbell. Commonly referred to as “The Hero’s Journey,” it examines the stages of the hero who goes on an adventure, faces a crisis and wins, then returns victorious. [3]<\/a>\u00a0 The diagram below reveals the elements of a good story.\u00a0 I gather authors, playwriters and others have used this to create a good American story.\u00a0 I say American, because the protagonist wins in the end.\u00a0 Other cultures (eastern European) have the hero\/heroine dying in the end leaving the viewer\/reader in a depressing funk.\u00a0 I remember telling a Slovak that the Hungarians told me that they were generally a depressed people.\u00a0 The Slovak responded, \u201cOh no, we are much more depressed!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s book is fascinating, but to shorten this post, I will chronicle my journey as the HERO.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The ordinary world \u2013 23 years, 6 months and 11 days in the U.S. Army. Moved every 3 years and spent 20 years living overseas.<\/li>\n
  2. Called to Adventure \u2013 Full time ministry with goodsportsinternational.org<\/a> in Hungary.<\/li>\n
  3. Refusal of the call \u2013 I felt I needed to go to seminary first, get a big church to pray and pay for me.<\/li>\n
  4. Meeting with the Mentor \u2013 Rob and Carol Greathouse, moved to Hungary to minister to people. He left City Bank and built a house in Hungary.<\/li>\n
  5. Crossing the Threshold \u2013 A Baptist pastor in Bratislava said, \u201cjust go.\u201d If you go to seminary you will never come back.<\/li>\n
  6. Trials, Enemies \u2013 No indoor plumbing for 6 months (outhouse), enemies? Adapting to new country, new language, new customs.<\/li>\n
  7. Approach to the innermost cave \u2013 \u201cWhat was I doing in Hungary?\u201d Was ministry to the orphanage once a week enough? Was I wasting my time?<\/li>\n
  8. Supreme Ordeal \u2013 Nothing pivotal but accepting my new role, becoming a baseball coach for my village, adopting first Nikoletta Kalohelani Chun, the Levente Kekoa Chun. Building a national staff, finding an accountant, finding a lawyer.\u00a0 Integrating my life into little and big Hungarians. Loving them unconditionally,<\/li>\n
  9. Return \u2013 After 10 years coming back to Texas to take care of ailing in-laws.<\/li>\n
  10. The Road Back \u2013 Leaving our house, car and everything we had built (to include the house) with three suitcases a piece \u2013 wondering what next.<\/li>\n
  11. Resurrection \u2013 Once again a student, once again a teacher, learning about refugees in the USA.<\/li>\n
  12. Return with the Elixir \u2013 realizing that a missionary has to work himself\/herself out of a job. That GoodSports Hungary needed to be: self-supporting, self- teaching, and self- replicating. LETTING GO, LETTING GOD.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Writes Campbell\u2026\u201d[4]<\/a>The recognition of the secondary nature of the personality of whatever deity is worshiped is characteristic of most of the traditions of the world (see, for example, p. 155, note 154). In Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism, however, the personality of the divinity is taught to be final \u2014 which makes it comparatively difficult for the members of these communions to understand how one may go beyond the limitations of their own anthropomorphic divinity. The result has been, on the one hand, a general obfuscation of the symbols, and on the other, a god-ridden bigotry such as is unmatched elsewhere in the history of religion. For a discussion of the possible origin of this aberration, see Sigmund Freud\u2019s Moses and Monotheism.[4]<\/p>\n

    He continues\u2026\u201dWe think of ourselves as Americans, children of the twentieth century, Occidentals, civilized Christians. We are virtuous or sinful. Yet such designations do not tell what it is to be a man, they denote only the accidents of geography, birthday, and income.\u00a0 What is the basic character of our being? (epilogue chapter 2, The Function of Myth, Cult, and meditation)[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Was Campbell a Catholic\/Animist? I suppose you could argue that. Having been a Catholic\/Animist, the biblical story of Christ, for me is not a myth.\u00a0 My personal testimony (see hero\u2019s journey) is a testimony to the active place Christ has within me\u2026Shalom.<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> What is animism?, GotQuestions.org, https:\/\/www.gotquestions.org\/Animism.html<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Ua Mau ke Ea o ka \u02bb\u0100ina i ka Pono, Wikipedia,<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Ua_Mau_ke_Ea_o_ka_%CA%BB%C4%80ina_i_ka_Pono&oldid<\/a><\/p>\n

    =1130356469<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, and David Kudler. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Joseph Campbell Foundation,<\/p>\n

    2020.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, and David Kudler. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2020.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, and David Kudler. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2020.<\/p>\n

    epilogue chapter 2, The Function of Myth, Cult, and meditation)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I have two things in common with Joseph Campbell, we both grew up as Catholic\/Animists. As a reminder, \u201cAnimism is the belief that everything has a soul or spirit, an anima in Latin, including animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, and stars. Animists believe each anima is a powerful spirit that can help or hurt them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2552],"class_list":["post-30632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02-campbell","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30633,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30632\/revisions\/30633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}