(3.7) “Galahad and the Grail” – An Introduction to ‘The Wasteland’

(3.7) “Galahad and the Grail” – An Introduction to ‘The Wasteland’

“We need to re-enchant a disenchanted world. We need to rebaptize our imagination. I’m trying to lift the veil; not so much to re-enchant, but to un-disenchant the world, to help us see what is already there.” (Dr. Malcolm Guite).

Dr. Guite’s Thoughts on the Importance of the Wasteland: “Because of technology, this is our cultural moment to explore King Arthur’s Wasteland. For we have become disconnected from nature and each other. We are distracted from true reality by endless scrolling. We have become blinded in our flattened imagination. We have become dis-membered, no longer able to see our lives as part of a coherent narrative. And without story, we lose not just meaning but identity. So we need to be ‘re-membered’ instead of compartmentalized, individualized, and divided. We are living in a modern version of the Wasteland.” 

G. K. Chesterton was ahead of his time… “Everything has been sundered from everything else, and everything has grown cold. This world is all one wild divorce court… Even now the color of a pebble, the smell of a flower, comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of life is the only real aim of education.”  (G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World).

Creation groans. “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”  (Romans 8:18-22). The Christian tradition has been that all creation has been moaning and sighing together in the pains of labor. Jeremiah asked in chapter 12:11, “How long must the land mourn, and the grass and herbs of the whole country wither? Through the wickedness of those who dwell in it, the beasts and the birds are consumed and are swept away.” Creation is living under a curse because of man’s disobedience and inferior stewardship. All of creation is waiting to be released from the curse, eagerly awaiting the time when it will not be affected by the consequences of sin.

Malcolm Muggeridge on the oneness of the universe… “Everything, I am profoundly convinced, is connected with everything else; the universe, my life, the past, the future, all this is a oneness, in which each part bears a relation to each other part. I see in the world, this phenomenal world, in nature, in the achievements of mankind, in myself, I see this mysterious connection, this oneness. There is nothing you can explore in all the universe which is not related to everything else.” 

Why is Malcolm Guite retelling the King Arthur saga, no less in the form of English ballads? He has gone on record as saying…

1. The KA mythical tales echo something real about sin, redemption, and the hope that was broken in us and in the world that can be made whole again;
2. Every generation that asks good questions of King Arthur legends gets good answers;
3. The modern world could use a resurrection of the ideal of chivalry and honor;
4. Ancient myths and stories aren’t just relics of a pre-modern imagination, they are carriers of truth we’ve forgotten how to see with modern eyes;
5. Legends like these don’t distract us from the real world, they reveal it;
6. These stories restore the spiritual elements that have been shorn away, and they renew their deepest meaning;
7. The English ballads were composed in a poetic form that were made to be sung or chanted out loud. They are rhythmic and musical, and one gets the sense that with ballads, ‘the poem on the page is lying asleep. And the job of the reader is to wake it up and breathe into its being by reciting it out loud, because that physicality of sound and breath and speech is what it’s made for.’ Above all, enjoy it. Poetry is meant to give pleasure.”
8. “This is the tale that makes my heart rejoice.”

Can we actually learn from old legends in modern times? Why should we even bother to seriously consider tales of knighthood? Why is it important in our modern world to resurrect the ancient tradition of epic storytelling? Various authors offer these profound reasons to dive into the old legends:

1. Myths often point to deep truths that go beyond mere facts and end up informing those facts.
2. Stories can have emotional truth and psychological truth that stretch beyond literal accuracy.
3. Legends contain essential truths that cannot be expressed otherwise.
4. We can learn from stories because we ourselves are a part of a universal narrative and so can easily join into a story, learn from it, and participate in it within our own lives.
5. Legends are able to stand the test of time because it communicates universal truths about the human experience that historical facts or literal reality cannot fully capture.
6. When a story rings true to real life, the reader makes the personal connections, and the fictional can then represent reality.
7. The fictional often specializes in providing the reader with living symbols which contain the essence of the eternal in and through the temporal.
8. Abraham Lincoln once said that a fool learns from his own mistakes, and a wise person learns from the mistakes of others. In stories, we can learn from the mistakes of fictional characters, we can witness the consequences of moral failure, we can be inspired by the triumphs of sound moral decisions.
9. When a reader’s imagination is captured by a story, the rest of that reader soon follows along, including one’s conscience, one’s ability to reason, and one’s strength of will.
10. Legends remind us that reason is the natural organ for truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning. 

Owen Barfield on the Restoration of the Wasteland… “The Grail Quest narrative anticipates and symbolizes the ‘Final Restoration,’ the restored, mutual relationship between humanity and nature, enabled by Christ.” 

“God was pleased that all His divine fullness should forever dwell permanently in the Son, who as predetermined by God, bled peace into the world by His death on the Cross as God’s means of reconciling to Himself the whole creation – all things in heaven and all things on earth. In other words, God purposed that all things would be completely reconciled back to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Reconciled: (Greek, “apokatallaxai”); a medical term meaning restoration of complete health; to fully restore to a former state of harmony; a total reconciliation of a broken relationship; a full return to what was once joined together.

Make Peace: (Greek, “eirenopsis”); to renew shalom; to resolve differences; to restore a unity to what was divided or fractured; to bring wholeness and well-being to what was spoiled or broken.

Universal Restoration (Also called Universal Reconciliation) is the term used for the Christian belief that eventually, ultimately, Creator God through His Son Jesus will restore His broken relationship with all of creation; that God has intended this world-wide restoration ever since sin broke creation into pieces and has ever since been waiting to be put back together again; that this fractured union between God and humanity would be completely reconciled through Jesus Christ; that all of creation, all of humanity since the Garden of Eden, has the destiny of being fully renewed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; that the timetable for this eventual restoration is known only to God, but is nonetheless destined because it is God’s eventual will for His beloved creation. “Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for God to restore all of creation, the Universal Restoration when all things will be made new, as He promised through His holy prophets from ancient times.” (Acts 3:21, in a sermon preached by Peter in the Temple).

Trinity Forum on the Wasteland and the Biblical Vision... “The Grail stories merge Christian themes with pre-Christian British folklore, creating a rich symbolic tapestry. The Wasteland, for instance, is a metaphor for entering our modern perception of reality that tries to explain complex ideas too simply. And so the Wasteland reminds us of the biblical vision of the intimate, complex relationship between creation, humanity, and the Creator.”