An Odyssey for Our Time

Granted, Christopher Nolan’s new movie, The Odyssey, will not be everybody’s cup of tea.

But I believe that Nolan, who recently won an Academy Award for his movie Oppenheimer, could very well win another Oscar for his film based on the ancient Greek poet Homer’s great classic.

Not only that, but Matt Damon — who plays the Hellenic hero Odysseus in the film — could easily win a best actor award for his excellent performance. The cinematography is breathtaking. Yes, the movie is long — two hours and fifty-two minutes — and many will find it too violent.

It is rated “R,” but not because of sex scenes. The movie, I believe, is true to Homer, and the Greek bard did not exactly “turn swords into pruning hooks.”

However, I would not bring up Nolan and his movie if I didn’t believe that some important spiritual points are made and exemplified in this film. I believe that we have a lot to learn from looking at Nolan’s depiction of ancient pagan society.

And you know what? Many of these points are not so long ago and far away, but they apply to right here and right now in the land of “e pluribus unum.”

I must admit that I do have a very warm spot in my heart for Homer’s epic poems: The Iliad and The Odyssey. I believe that ancient Greece was one of the greatest and most important societies and cultures to ever exist on Earth. Homer’s poems were sort of like The Bible for Hellenic peoples in antiquity.

I count my blessings that I went to a college which required all undergraduate students — whether they were English majors or in the engineering school — to take two years of humanities courses. The first year was in essence a great books course, very similar to the one that Myrtle Fillmore went to at Oberlin College.

During the first month or so, all of the freshman students were studying The Iliad and The Odyssey. We used Richard Lattimore’s excellent translations of Homer's work. Lattimore’s translations are known to be close to the original Greek and highly rhythmical.

Nolan's movie brought home memories of reading about the Cyclops and Circe who turns Odysseus’ men into swine on her island of Aeaea. Then there is the goddess Calypso who keeps Odysseus prisoner on her island of Ogygia by playing tricks with his memory.

Matt Damon gives an excellent performance tied to the mast of his ship as he listens to the Sirens, who are dangerous singers who lure sailors to their destruction. And of course, Nolan throws in an excellent depiction of the Trojan horse.

The Odyssey is one of our earliest "hero's journey” sagas. TS Elliott took characters from this ancient Greek classic and put them into his 20th century poems. James Joyce used Homer’s model for his modern classic Ulysses. There is even a touch of The Odyssey in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road.

But I would like to center on a few points that the Nolan movie really hits home about spirituality in the pagan world:

— First, the gods are so capricious. They so often act like spoiled human beings who have not experienced much spiritual development. They can be really spiteful, and they certainly know how to hold grudges.

— Second, it is a world where human beings are often trying to just find the right libation to pour — or sacrifice to make — to soothe an angry god.

— Third, it is a world where many people seem to have the following attitude: “You pay taxes and then you get sick and die.”

— Fourth, the gods seem to have only limited time for you, and they also seem to have limited power to do anything for you.

I think that many people in our modern world hold to the above views in their heart of hearts, even though they would not call themselves pagans.

I think it’s important for us to truly inventory and write down what we really feel about the Divine. If we are harboring the above types of thoughts, then Unity, New Thought, and many interfaith traditions have powerful ways of eliminating these pagan hangovers.

If we are really willing to take a deeper look, there is a more powerful and positive reality displayed in the Nolan movie. Odysseus at long last is able to come home. He is able to get rid of all of the creeps who have been lusting after his wife and greedy to become king of Ithaca.

Yes, in the final analysis “what goes around comes around.” I see very strong evidence of the so-called GOLDEN THREAD or PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY in The Odyssey. It may take time for this positive result to work itself out. But remember it took a long time before God‘s promise to Abraham and Sarah, to have a son, also materialized.

There is a reason why Odysseus was considered an incredible hero in the ancient world. We can still learn many positive lessons from Odysseus' journey.

Many blessings,

Rev Rick