In defense of Chalice, if I may argue with myself, the book is really dealing with a sort of myth of sanctification. And I don't mean myth in the disillusioning sense; I mean it in the richest and most credible sense - which is, incidentally, pretty much the only way I use the word. In the last few days, there have been several moments when I have thought 'this needs sanctification,' and the image of Mirasol wandering over the four corners of her country desperately meting out her magic in drips of watered-down honey would come to mind. The book is full of these images. The bees, the honey, the fire - they are beautiful images because they have weight and depth and they call out directly to this need in us to have things of weight and depth lend us blessing. We need the words 'you are whole and healthy' to be spoken over us so that we can be whole and healthy. No wandering wordsmith will do. The one who reminds us of our healing is also the one who gives it to us with his own chalice, the cup of Christ, the body and blood of our Lord.
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
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