Keeping the Ball in the Air

I often say that the goal is to keep the ball in the air. In other words, let truth and meaning move in an infinite midrash. Imagining, and the act of interpretation, never end. This is the task imposed by myth, which opens and deepens, illuminates and confuses, because a myth is a means through which to see something, not a statement of “what is.” A myth is a map, as Ginette Paris says, not the terrain. A myth displays possibilities, but it doesn’t tell you which way to go.

I have embraced the exploration and use of this insight as my life’s work. But there is an unanswered question, a problem, and it has newly occupied me ever since I read and responded to Deepak Chopra’s post “Obama and the Palin Effect.” What is the relationship between myth and morality? Or more specifically, in a world of ever changing meaning and imaginative constructs, what is the basis for a moral or ethical system? How do I take the moral position, and I have, that Sarah Palin is just wrong about abortion and book banning and wolf hunting and the Iraq War, and keep that proverbial ball in the air? How convenient, if people just agreed on what is right and what is wrong. But we don’t.

The disagreement is a practical, albeit important one, if one is willing to just be absolutely, unequivocally right. But as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “If you have a gun, you can shoot one, two, three, five people, but if you have an ideology and stick to it, thinking it is the absolute truth, you can kill millions.”