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    A New Myth for America
    A New Myth for America
    A New Myth for America
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    A New Myth for America

    By James Hilgendorf

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    About this ebook

    Every great civilization has had its own myth, a cosmic story of how we fit into the universe, a divine story of who we are and where we came from.

    Greece had Chaos and Chronos, Zeus, Athena and Hercules and a pantheon of other gods. Rome had Aeneas and Romulus and Remus. Western civilization had the Old Testament prophets and stories of the Bible.

    Now, though many in the world still hang on, these myths are either crumbling or gone to dust.

    Now a great myth comes forth, bringing forth light and thunder upon a newly birthing world.

    It is the reason for the existence of the universe itself.

    It is one person coming to fruition and bloom.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Hilgendorf
    Release dateMar 7, 2012
    ISBN9781929159307
    A New Myth for America
    Author

    James Hilgendorf

    James Hilgendorf is the author of nine books - "Life & Death: A Buddhist Perspective", "The Great New Emerging Civilization", "The New Superpower", "The Buddha and the Dream of America", "A New Myth for America", "Poems of Death: Time for Eternity", "Handbook for Youth in a Muddied Age", "Maybe We Need a New Religion", and "Forever Here". He is also the producer of The Tribute Series, a series of highly-acclaimed travel films that are in homes, libraries, and schools all across the United States, several of which have appeared on PBs and international television.

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      Book preview

      A New Myth for America - James Hilgendorf

      A New Myth for America

      by

      James Hilgendorf

      Published by

      James Hilgendorf at Smashwords

      Copyright 2012 by James Hilgendorf

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      *****

      A New Myth for America

      *****

      The Dream of America

      Every great civilization has had its own myth, a cosmic story of how we fit into the universe, a divine story of who we are and where we came from.

      Greece had Chaos and Chronos, Zeus, Athena and Hercules and a pantheon of other gods. Rome had Aeneas and Romulus and Remus. Western civilization had the Old Testament prophets and stories of the Bible.

      Now, though many in the world still hang on, these myths are either crumbling or gone to dust.

      In the popular television series, The Power of Myth, in which Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Campbell, one of the foremost authorities on mythology, the following dialogue takes place:

      Moyers:

      You've seen what happens when primitive societies are unsettled by white man's civilization. They go to pieces, they disintegrate, they become diseased. Hasn't the same thing been happening to us since our myths began to disappear?

      Campbell:

      Absolutely, it has.

      Moyers:

      Isn't that why conservative religions today are calling for the old-time religion?

      Campbell:

      Yes, and they're making a terrible mistake. They are going back to something that is vestigial, that doesn't serve life. The old-time religion belongs to another age, another people, another set of human values, another universe. By going back you throw yourself out of sync with history. Our kids lose their faith in the religions that were taught to them, and they go inside.

      Moyers"

      Often with the help of a drug.

      What we crave is a new consciousness, a new time, new stories, new heroes and heroines, dragons and great knights upon black steeds, the battle, the quest - a story that encompasses the heavens and suns and stars and galaxies and black holes and universes beyond number, yet is bolted down to rocks and rivers and flowers and thunder and rain, finding its tale reverberating through the bones and marrow and hearts of the blacksmith, the nanny, the insurance salesman, the ice cream vendor, the teacher, banker, garbage collector, shoe repairman, mechanic, musician, swelling the chorus of a billion, trillion, quintillion, quadrillion voices of stifled dreams out of the very heart of the universe itself, dreams waiting and unfulfilled, dreams blighted and blasted by war, famine, pestilence, lack of opportunity, oppression - not just any dreams, not just the dreams of a satisfied self, but the dreams of something greater, of justice, love, recognition, and a place in the universe of forever.

      The real, true dream and myth of America.

      Yes, America.

      For the Dream of America has always been a dream that resonated within the minds and hearts of men and women and children around the globe - that shining vision, that dreamt-of and promised land that was almost on another plane of reality. It was a new beginning, a new province of heretofore unfulfilled possibilities for the human race.

      We talk of the Dream of America, and consider it originated with the Pilgrim fathers landing upon our shores, the vision of a shining City upon a Hill (even though the City they built - themselves having fled persecution and suffered persecution themselves - was turned into a bastion of intolerance and authoritarianism that drove those who did not fit the mold of the City to seek freedom and salvation elsewhere); or with the Declaration of Independence and its strains of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (even though the signers of this great document and ideals expressed there upheld in their own lives the degradation of slavery - no less a man than one of our own Christian forefathers, Thomas Jefferson, personally held hundreds of slaves in his monied accounts - this same Thomas Jefferson who in 1814 wrote: ...the amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent).

      Yes, these are also strains of the American Dream.

      In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins near the end of the Civil War, wrote:

      We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood... It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

      He was speaking, of course, of the usurping of economic and political power by the corporations.

      This malaise has finally engulfed us.

      It is the fruition of what has gone before, the fruit of our false dreams.

      Wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, trillions of dollars, devastating our economy, destroying the future of our youth, enriching the coffers of munitions manufacturers, builders of atomic and hydrogen bombs, helicopters, tanks, automatic rifles,

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