Rev. C. Scot Giles, D.Min., LLC

Over the years I received many requests to post the text of some of the sermons I have given at churches of my denomination. I've decided to go ahead a do that with a selection of my best pulpit work. The text of the sermon will be at the start of the Blog entry, and you will find service details (readings, prayers, etc.) at the end.

Searching for Hyperboria
The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles
Countryside UU Church, November 27, 2005 (modified for Advent)
Geneva UU Society, February 17 & 18, 2007 (modified for Mardi Gras)

Anyone know what these are? They are called “Throws” and they’re used during the major Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans that will happen this Tuesday. This is what they look like in the traditional colors of Mardi Gras: purple for justice, gold for power and green for faith. The masked “Throwers” on the floats in the parade will have hundreds of these that they will throw to the people watching the parade who have attracted their attention in various ways.

I had actually planned to throw these necklaces from the pulpit out into the congregation at this point. However, your minister made me promise not to do that. She was deeply afraid of what some of you might do.

“Mardi Gras” is French for “Fat Tuesday,” which is the day before Ash Wednesday when the religious penitential season of Lent begins in the Christian Calendar.

These days, Fat Tuesday is really the peak of a series of celebrations that will have been going on for almost two weeks. That season of Carnival begins slowly and works its way to a fever pitch on Fat Tuesday with a huge parade by groups called “Krewes,” such as the Bacchus Krewe, the Orpheus Krewe and the famous Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Presiding over the whole festival is the Captain of the Rex Organization, a Krewe with a long-time military connection, who will ride masked on a white horse before the storied float on this year’s Mardi Gras theme, “The Lunar Realm.”

We celebrate Mardi Gras after a fashion at the Bates/Giles household. I display some of the Throws on our dining table, and for the two week period I prepare come classical New Orleans food, which I find to be a lot of fun.

This year I ordered an actual King Cake from a New Orleans bakery. A King Cake is a coffee cake frosted in Mardi Gras colors in which a small marble statute of a baby has been baked. It’s considered good luck to get the piece containing the King. This year Lindsay got it on her first slice into the cake.

What’s all this about? Mardi Gras is sort of a “last fling” before Lent. Carnival celebrations world-wide include the need to use up meat and animal products, such as eggs and butter, which would only spoil during the 40 days of Lent. But the celebration itself is older. Scholars tell us it may have its origin in the ancient classical custom of parading a statue of the solar god Apollo in a cart through the streets in a metaphor for the sun’s progress through the sky each year.

As the cult of Apollo waned in the ancient world, other gods on their carts joined the parade, with the temple workers on those carts competing for the cheers of the crowd by throwing coins and jewelry to those watching the parade.

So actually, Mardi Gras is a memorial to old pagan solar festival, dressed up Christian, where who do the pagan gods proud.

I love legends and stories like this. This morning I want to tell you about some legends I’ve collected over the years. I want to talk about the legends of a lost continent.

You know some of the names that have been used to describe this land, even though the location has been variously placed.

It has been called Atlantis, the continent described by Plato, lost beneath the ocean after a volcanic eruption.

It’s been called Lemura, the name given by a 19th century geologist to a hypothetical land mass in the Indian Ocean to account for similarities between animals (especially the Lemurs) in India and Madagascar where there was no land bridge.

The Lost Land has been called Asgard, the home of Odin and Thor.

It has been called Shambala, the mythical kingdom in the Himalayan Mountains where ancient Masters dwell. Mentioned in the most ancient of the Buddhist and Bon texts, it was said to be a place where all the inhabitants are enlightened. War and injustice are unknown, and like Lake Woebegone of modern creation, all the men were handsome, the women beautiful and the children above average.

Some call it Thule, and believe that it was located where the North Pole is now found. But Thule was a warm paradise that existed before the Earth’s magnetic poles changed, and it was destroyed in that change.

Celtic legends tell of Avalon, a druidic Eden somewhere near Glastonbury in Great Britain where people live in full harmony with nature, where King Arthur is said to be buried, his body taken there across the mists by his half-sister Morgan le Fey.

The legends also tell of Camelot, a more modern echo of Avalon, but this one ruled by a just King and by Christian Knights who sat at a Round Table.

There are other names, other stories. Anthropologists call the legends of these lovely, lost ancient civilizations “Hyperborean” legends, and the name “Hyperboria” is used to speak about them as a class. The name comes from Greek Mythology where the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived to the far north (the word means “beyond the north winds” in Greek). It was a perfect land of bright sun twenty-four hours a day.

Some of these stories may have a basis in actual reality. We think we have a pretty good idea of what the history of our planet is, but it’s possible to be mistaken and we’re always discovering new things.

Scientists tell us that the continents of our planet originally existed as a single land mass called Pangaea, which split apart during some sort of cataclysm, and then the parts drifted away from each other. Continental drift is a geologic phenomenon that is real. We know this because the continents continue to drift away from each other, and that drift can be measured by delicate instruments.

Well, if you take models of all the continents of our planet and fit them together by the ridges of their continental shelves, they do fit together. But there is one piece obviously missing. Some say that was where Atlantis was. Who can be sure?

While the human species apparently did arise from ancient Africa, the most ancient of the human languages have a common structure that is older than their particular words. It is a structure older than Hebrew, Greek, Phoenician and Babylonian. Scholars believe they have found the ancient root of all Indo-European languages and it is not from Africa. It is Sanskrit. The language from the greatest mountains in the world, the Himalayans. Most written languages somehow come from that ancient, inaccessible place. Maybe there was a Shambala, or something like one. Who can be sure?

It’s not hard to imagine how ancient people could look at the night sky and imagine that whatever was to the North must be special. The North Star is the one unmoving thing in the heavens, so surely there was something special that way. Maybe the Unmoved Mover of the World somehow lived beneath the light of that unmoving star, in a land where at times the sun does shine 24 hours each day? The legends of Thule began. You can see how some of the stories got started.

One of my favorite musicians is an Irish woman who performs under than name Enya. She is a daughter from the family that founded one of the best-known Celtic Music ensembles, Clannad.

My favorite album by Enya is called A Day Without Rain. It’s a short album and her most personal. One of the songs is a haunting spiritual song about people who seek for the answers to spiritual questions. People who want to know “why the winds blow, or where the stories go…”

“Where the stories go…” Why do human beings love stories so much? Why do they keep getting retold? Where do these legends of a Hyperborean land come from? Why have they lasted rather than faded? Even if they never existed, and these lands are only a fantasy, it is a fact that their stories exist.

Well, old stories never die. They just get recycled. That’s how we got a lot of the Bible. The Bible isn’t one book; it’s a collection of many books. In fact, that’s what the word means. “Bible” is from a Greek word “biblia” which means “The Books.”

All the books are old, but some are much older than others. The first book, Genesis, isn’t one book but a collection. Bible scholars detect at least three writers who created the stories in that book.

One called the “Priest” because “he” was writing down the stories after the Temple of Solomon existed. He uses words that only came into being after the construction of the Temple. This writer was a philosopher. “In the beginning…the earth was a formless void...”

Creation occurs in an orderly series. “On the first day…God said ‘Let there be light…” The Sabbath day was a special day, an obvious concern for the clergy. Men and women were created together on the Sixth Day. And in the Beginning there is water. “…while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The problem is where do we get the dry land, which doesn’t show up until the Third Day.

This writer gave us the creation story you find when you first open the Bible. But right after it at Chapter 2, verse 4, there is a second creation story that is incompatible with the first. There are no Days of Creation. Man was created first followed by women. At the start of the story everything is dry and God changes it to make it wet in verse 6.

“In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens when no plant of the earth was yet in the earth…—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth…”

This second story is the work of the writer called “the Elohist” because she uses the ancient word for God, “elohim” which means one god out of many. I just called the writer “she,” because many scholars believe this writer was female, and she is writing at the end of a long literary dark age in the ancient world. Her stories are much older than the stories told by the Priest. She serves an anthropomorphic God who walks in his garden in the cool of the evening. She loves stories.

However, she is not making the stories up. She is retelling stories that are much more ancient. Mostly, her source was something called The Epic of Gilgamesh. It is a saga from 2000 BC, older than our Old Testament by at least 1500 years. It contains the story of the Garden of Eden, the Fall, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the legend of Noah’s flood. That’s where those stories originally come from, unless the Epic of Gilgamesh also has an ancestor.

Old stories do not go away. They just get recycled. When the Jews came out of Egypt they wandered in the Wasteland for one generation, until all those who have been slaves in Egypt had grown old and died. Then, the younger generations, eager for a home, were led to the Promised Land. It was to be a paradise, a Land of Milk and Honey, like the lost Garden of Eden they were told about in the ancient times of their culture, which was their Hyperboria. They would have something like the Garden again.

They found a land, occupied it, and created Israel. Even today the Jewish people take pride in this story, and we who practice a faith that was once part of that Mid-eastern belief recall the story of the Promised Land too.

Now, if your childhood was anything like mine you may have seen a Children’s Bible with a popular illustration of the Promised Land. The picture I remember was of a robed Jesus standing with the family of Moses and drawing aside a curtain to show a wonderful landscape—the Promised Land. There were well-tended fields and orchards, trim lawns and graceful rivers glittering in the sunlight. It is empty and waiting for its new owners.

Actually, the Promised Land was beautiful. It was a Land of Milk and Honey, and it was well tended because, you see, there were people living there. The Hebrews had to kill them.

The Promised Land was called Canaan. A peace-loving people called the Canaanites inhabited it, and they had a high culture, a well-developed religion based on the worship of a male deity called Baal and a female deity called Astarte. It was an earth-centered fertility religion in which they practiced “sympathetic magic.” Now, “sympathetic fertility magic” is clergy-speak for the practice of sacred prostitution. Worshippers would come to the temple, pay a fee and get to have sex with a temple prostitute who was understood to represent the goddess. By having sacred sex with her it was believed that one created energy that would make the land healthy and fertile. Church attendance was seldom a problem. Neither was fund-raising.

The Book of Joshua in the Old Testament is the story of the race war the Hebrews waged to conquer the Promised Land, enslave the native population, and occupy it as a new home land for themselves; much like the colonial Americans did to the American Indians. Colonial Americans who, by the way, compared themselves to the Israelites, who said they were coming to a new Promised Land, and who gave their New England villages names like New Canaan.

Make no mistake about it. Stories are powerful. They influence what people believe, what they will fight for, what they will die for. Stories have a power that is stronger than armies.

Now all of the Hyperborean stories have two things in common. First, they tell of a time, long ago, when things were better than they are now. A time when people lived long, healthy lives, where government worked, where high culture reigned and where spiritual wisdom was vast.

Second, they tell of an event where the Golden Age came to an end. Atlantis sinks beneath the waves, Lemuria is swallowed up by the ground, Thule is frozen when the earth’s magnetic poles reverse, Avalon is detached from our reality and drifts away, the Knights of the Round Table quarrel and Camelot ends. The children of Elohim betray their God and are cast out of Eden.

And, say the stories, things have not gotten better since.

The stories of these lost lands concern what my old professor Mircea Eliade called a “devolutionary” world-view. It’s the view that things were better once, and that we live in a degenerate time.

Historically, Unitarian Universalists have been more optimistic. In the heyday of our denomination (the time of our greatest expansion), the 1950s and 60s, we were of an optimistic opinion that through reason, democracy and science, things were just going to keep getting better and better, and nothing could stop that.

In fact, many of our congregations recited an affirmation every Sunday that said this. It was called the Universalist Declaration of Faith:

“We avow our faith in … the power of persons of good will and sacrificial spirit to overcome all evil and progressively establish the kingdom of God [onward and upward forever!].”

It was the custom in some of our congregations for the members to gesture toward the ceiling with the index finger as they said “onward and upward forever!”

I actually attended services in my boyhood where this custom was observed, although it was dying out because members of the teen group (called then “Liberal Religious Youth”) used to join in with the gesture--but insisted on using the wrong finger.

Well, past UU sentiments aside, all of the ancient stories are devolutionary, probably as a way of reminding us that we can always do better.

In fact the Greek poet Hesiod (700 BC) talked about Atlantis as representing a Golden Age that was followed by the Silver Age of ancient Greek Culture. His later followers added the belief that the Silver Age of Greece was followed by the Bronze Age of Roman Culture and the Iron Age that we live in today.

There are many similar legends. In the ancient Hindu Texts of the Vedas such epical cycle are also found, and we would be said to live in Kali Yuga today, the final and most degenerate age before a cataclysm that would bring world-wide renewal.

There is a similar cycle in Nordic Legend, where we would be said to live in the Age of the Wolf in the Twilight of the Gods awaiting Ragnarock, the final battle that will bring renewal. There are similar Jewish and Christian legends of a coming Apocalypse.

Old stories never die. They just get recycled and retold. All the ancient legends are more alike than different.

I’m someone who reads sacred literature as psychology rather than history. The stories are interesting, but there has to be a reason why they have lasted so long.

First, let me be clear that I fully accept the testimony of geophysicists who tell us that it is extremely unlikely that Atlantis, Lemura, Thule and the like ever existed. That doesn’t bother me. Scholars of ancient texts long ago learned to distinguish between factual truth and meaning. It is quite possible for something in a legend to be factually false, but still be meaningful in that it tells us something about ourselves or illustrates a moral or theological principle.

For example, Jesus of Nazareth was probably not actually born in a stable after his mother got it on with God, and probably was not literally visited by angels, shepherds and Persian astrologers while a Little Drummer Boy played a catchy tune.

However, even though that story may be factually false, it still tells us a lot about human hope, the desire for renewal, the promise of all children and the dignity of even humble persons. The story is meaningful, even if factually false.

So it doesn’t matter if any of the Hyperborean civilizations actually existed. Even if Gilgamesh never went on his quest. Even if King Arthur does not sleep beneath Avalon. The legends about them exist and the fact they have lasted so long is meaningful.

My friends, I think we have loved these stories because they keep alive in our mind the possibility that a just, wise and good society can actually exist. If they got it right long ago in an ancient land, that shows its possible to have a civilization free of corruption, where everything works, where we live in harmony with the environment, and where goodness is the rule. Paradise on earth might actually be possible if we do better than we do now.

That gives us hope to try to improve the civilization that we do have now, and provides a way for us to call what does exist into question.

Our leaders tell us not to be too idealistic. They tell us that our ethical principles about torture, treatment of captives, or our intolerance for corruption is unreasonable. Yet in our hearts we know that is not true.

We know it’s not true, but how do we know?

We know because we compare our actual situation to an imagination of what a just society should be like, even if we have never experienced one.

Where do we get images of things we have never experienced? One of the places we get them is from stories that stretch our minds by the use of imagination. That’s why the Biblical stories are still important. That’s why the Hyperborean stories have lasted so long.

On the wall of my office there is a bronze plaque that says, “Imagination is Evidence of the Divine.” It’s a quote from the poet William Blake. Blake believed God created our world in His mind first, and then gave it form. Imagination allows us to create something new in our minds, and then we may be able to give it form.

The artist imagines the sculpture, and then crafts it. The chef imagines the new succulent dish and then actually blends the ingredients to create the actual favor.

The stories of these lost Hyperborean civilizations allow us to imagine a better world, and then, maybe, we might have some idea of how to create it. For there to be a new direction, there must first be the imagination of what it might be like.

And so in our minds some create a Shambala, an Atlantis, a Thule, an Eden or a Camelot. We imagine what a better world might have been like, and then, maybe we can do something about recreating it, or something like it. At the very least it helps us critique those who tell us not to try to do better.

That’s why every civilization has it’s own version of Hyperboria, from Greece to Israel. It doesn’t matter if the lost lands ever existed or not. The stories of them are meaningful because they inspire. The lend us their Grace.

That’s true of every great story. It’s true of the story of Moses, or the stories about Jesus. It’s true about the miracles of Easter and Christmas. These stories are meaningful, even if not true.

That’s what all great legends and stories do, and it’s why we cherish them. Remember that, this Mardi Gras. Old Stories Rule!

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Service

The Chalice Lighting
We light our Chalice this morning with the words of Dag Hammarskjold: "Each [morning] we must hold out the chalice of our being, to receive, to carry, and to give back."

Readings
Gaius Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Elder 23-79 AD (Hist. Nat. 4:26)

"Beyond the Aquilon one finds a blessed nation called, according to tradition, the Hypeboreans. Among them, men reach an extreme age. Many marvels are told of this people. Some say that the hinges of the world and the limit of the course of the stars lie in their region... The country is bathed in sunlight and enjoys a pleasant temperature..."
"Discord is there ignored, and so is disease. People there do not die but from the satiety of living. After a festive banquet, full of the joys of old age, the one who wants to die jumps into the seas from a lofty rock. Such is for them the happiest way to die. One cannot doubt the reality of this country, described by many authorities."

The Road To Avalon, by Riversong

"Can you tell me the way to Avalon?"
If you've the strength and will to reach it, child.
I searched once for that land in eons gone;
The way is hard to find, the path grown wild.

If you traverse the Road to Anywhere
On through the Wood of Dreams, then you will see
The end of all you've ever known, and there
The moonbeam bridge that spans the midnight sea.

If still you seek to reach the Misty Isle
Set foot upon that arch and do not stray
Nor pause to rest, but carry on awhile
To where enchanted twilight meets the day.

But here I failed Avalon to find:
Take heed; as you go, never look behind.

Prayer [Rabbi Rami Shapiro, adapted]: Lord of our hearts, God of our minds, help us to….
Sing to Life a new song!
Sing to Life, all Creation!
Sing of compassion and temper deeds with kindness.
Sing to all the world and tell of the miracles that sustain us daily.

Yet Wonder is greater than praise.
No words can capture its Essence,

All words are idols, all ideas snares…
Truth is beyond opinion,
Reality lies beyond thought’s last horizon.

Splendor and majesty leave us speechless.
Strength and beauty are touched, not talked.

Let our worship be acts of beauty,
Let all the world stand together in awe.

Declare among the nations “All is God!
Maintain the world with justice!

The heavens rejoice and the earth is glad;
The seas roar their praise.
The fields exult, the forests sing,
For all the world is rooted in Glory.

Help us to know these things, O God.
Amen.

Offertory
I recall a story where a young boy went up the minister after church and said, “When I grow up I’m going to give you a lot of money.” The minister was deeply touched, and asked, “Why would you do that?”

“Because, said the boy. Everyone here says you’re the poorest preacher we’ve had here in a long time….

Well…I don’t know about that, but I do know that our faith needs the generosity of its entire people, and so with thanks the morning offering will be received.

Closing Words [Yohit Veda]
May that which scatters ignorance and darkness,
Grant us its strength
May all beings regard us with the eye of a friend, and we all beings,
With the eye of a friend, may we each regard all others,
Until what we hope becomes real, and happiness reigns.

Responsive Benediction
And now may the Truth that makes us free,
And the hope that Never dies,
And the Love that Casts Our Fear
Lead us forward together,
Until the Dayspring breaks
And the Shadows flee away.