Permission to be the hero of your own story
In his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell outlined the rolling plot and theme to all the great myths, stories, and adventures told throughout history, culture, and religion the world over. Most heroes seem to follow a particular pattern on their road to becoming more themselves; a more actualised (or 'actualized' for our US English friends) and aware and whole being. It seems to be a transcendent sequence that plays out in our lives, too, if we choose to embark on the journey.
The four stages of the Hero's Journey, according to Joseph Campbell, are:
1) Separation: The experience of lack or loss or emptiness, usually tripped by trial, tragedy, and/or pain.
2) The descent into the abyss: crossing the threshold from the decision to practice that generally takes us to places of confrontation and difficulty. This is where things look bad, and you have hard choices to make.
3) The ascent: flow starts to happen, the second wind of strength, a sense of momentum even though there is still hard work to be done. Things are looking up.
4) Unification: the return or the resurrection. The culmination of events into a transcendent outcome.
All that to say this: Historically and traditionally, most 'Hero Journey' stories feature men, or the masculine, as the protagonist. Think Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Women play a role but rarely do they function as the central character. Many of the heroes you would have grown up with would have been male. They would have been warriors. They would have been sons and brothers and fathers and uncles.
But not in the Bible.
The Biblical text is such a strange library of books. On the one hand, some passages and stories seem so backward and exclusionary, and then right beside those, you have these radically progressive books of inclusion and beauty and transcendence. Ruth is one such book and story. If you allow it to, it will challenge your perceptions, and the origins of them, too. When explaining his heroes journey idea, Joseph Campbell often admitted that women were rarely "heroes," and played more of a helper role in stories, and in turn, the world at large. They just had too much to do, he said, to be able even to fathom adventure.
But now, my friend, you and your daughters and your sisters and your mothers and your aunts and your grandmothers...
we have Ruth.
Ruth is the hero of her own story. And the even more amazing and transcendent thing about it, and where you, my male counterparts can hook into this story, too, is that Ruth wasn't even an Israelite. A biblical hero, who was a woman, and a foreigner.
The good news of God has always and will always be inclusion and goodness and more inclusion and goodness, as you are, who you are, here and now.
And here is the invitation, dear friend. You're invited to participate in your own life, to be the hero of your own story. The Christ energy has always been, and was always meant to be, your guide on your way to becoming who you are, and have always been. This is where women (generally speaking) have experience: women know (to a point) what it is to be shown a glimpse of something glorious, but denied access to it. POC know that truth, too. As do many minority groups across the globe in our communities, living next door, sharing our homes.
But God? God gave us heroes that broke all the rules. The Biblical text is full of people, just like you and me, who would have been denied access to glorious things except that God shows us time and time again that no one is, or never should be, denied access to becoming the hero of their own story. Which, of course, is the purest kind of glory you can touch.
The challenge is to not just talk about embarking on the journey, letting other people tell you how it's done, and who can do it, and all the rules and regulations you must stick to; but rather to pick up your life, put skin in the game, and do the work.
(This post is an excerpt from The Practice Co App series called "Becoming More Yourself", available to download for iOS and Android! It includes daily devotionals, FREE Mindful Prompt notifications (no subscription needed), phone wallpapers and more. Start with a free trial or subscribe to get access to each new series as they come out.)
Mindful Prompt: What are some areas of success, or strength, or even joy and happiness that you think are off-limits to you? What limitations do you put on yourself for growth and becoming because of certain features, or facts, or circumstances of your life? Picture those mindsets and beliefs in your mind. Hold them there. Begin to break them apart with your hands, breath, eyes, and love. Remind yourself of Ruth, a hero who propriety said couldn't be, but who has a whole book in the Bible named after her, and is the lineage of Christ. Then remind yourself that that's not grace, that's just how things were always meant to be.
(*Included every day, in the app now as a FREE daily push notification - no subscription necessary!)
Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco
