I was in fourth grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Evenings and weekends I watched the news with my parents. Listened as Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite narrated the events of those days, the assassination, the funeral, the transfer of power. Listened as my parents talked about this president that they had not voted for. This was my introduction into what it meant to be an American.

Late weekend afternoons I watched as Walter Cronkite narrated The Twentieth Century, a TV news program covering the significant events of the century. It was Walter Cronkite who taught me about World War II, the atrocities of war, and the sacrifices of soldiers so that we could live in a better world.

July 20, 1969, my mother’s birthday, my family sat in a dark living room late at night to watch Neil Armstrong in his bulky spacesuit take that last step from a flimsy spacecraft to the surface of the moon. Walter Cronkite was there with us, his voice choked with emotion, “The Eagle has landed.”

A few days after 9/11, Walter Cronkite appeared on David Letterman. He told how so many of the local German families were appalled when they entered the death camps like Auschwitz. Cronkite said he didn’t blame the German people for what happened in those camps. He blamed them for not knowing, and he warned all of us of the dangers of going too far in the coming days, the danger of overstepping ourselves, of hubris as we responded to the national tragedy facing us. We should have listened better.

Friday, July 17, 2009, Walter Cronkite passed on. His voice is silent now.

© Bill Stifler, 2009

I went to college with the intention of returning to PA and working at a home mission there modeled after Youth for Christ. That organization, Teen Encounter, had had a major impact on my life, and I wanted to give something back. Unfortunately, the organization changed its focus and opened a summer camp in mid-state PA. I still continued to study theology, but I began to have questions that I couldn’t find answers to, and that I often felt I could not ask in the conservative environment where I attended school and church. So I bracketed my questions as unanswerable and tried not to think too much about the spiritual issues that troubled me.

A year ago, the teacher who taught the mythology classes retired.¹ Because of my background in biblical studies and my skills at online learning, I was offered the classes. I thought, then, that I knew a great deal about mythology, but it didn’t take me long to realize I knew very little.

I began reading works by Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade. I read Bettlehiem and Raglan and others, and I continue to read these and other writers as well as reading primary sources in the myths themselves.

Mythology appeals to me because of its roots in multidisciplinary levels of understanding. I liked literary criticism in grad school, and many critical approaches to mythology parallel the studies I did in literary criticism. I’m also drawn to archetypal approaches to literature. I had read Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism while in grad school, and his approach appealed to me even though I was becoming more adept at applying a variety of critical approaches to my reading and understanding of literature. I am still at the novice stage in that endeavor, but mythology gives me a new opportunity to hone those skills and also to engage in discussions with students on those topics.

Mythology offers me a forum for discussions that ranges across several fields of study of interest to me: sociology, psychology, science, literature, literary criticism, philosophy, and others. It stimulates me to make more connections between these disciplines and also engage students in the same dialogue. I’ve also found that my study of mythology is leading me to re-evaluate and re-formulate those questions I have about the traditional Christian view I had been taught, and I began to see the possibility of answers and resolutions in the critics I was reading.

In addition, mythology permeates our culture. It can be seen in fantasy and science fiction. It appears in mainstream shows like Joan of Arcadia or movies like Adventures in Babysitting and Mannequin. And mythological thinking and mythological ways of viewing the world continue to have a major impact on how we see ourselves and how we define the world. For instance, much of the rhetoric applied to the current Iraq war is expressed in mythological terms.

As I learn more about mythology, I become increasing interested in learning even more, and it is my hope that my students find mythology relevant to their lives, and that it opens up an expanded awareness of the world in which they “live, and move, and have their being.”

[This article was originally posted on my MySpace blog, Sunday, October 2, 2005.]

¹ Linda Reaves, retired Associate Professor of English and Humanities, and the instructor of the mythology classes before me, passed away early February 2009. She is missed and remembered by all of us. Selected works by Eudora Welty as well as several Newberry Award books are being placed in the Augusta R. Kolwyck Library at Chattanooga State as a memorial for her service to students and the college.

© Bill Stifler, 2005

Our instructor Bill Rader is clever. He had the guys line up on one side of the room and the gals on the other. Most of the people there were married couples, but there were a handful of us who are single. I watched the single women match themselves opposite us. Fortunately, I have a high tolerance for rejection and wasn’t bothered that I seemed to be the “last man standing” as the gals sorted themselves out.

My first partner Barbara is about my age or a bit older and married. Her husband can dance but travels, and she wants to learn to dance for him. Bill had us begin by standing facing each other palm to palm. Then, using a gentle pressure, the guys “pushed” the gals around the room. The goal is to build a sense of rapport and “body connection” between the partners. The interesting things was that as long as Barbara and I just chatted, the rapport worked well. We only had problems when we started thinking about it.

I have a weak left arm, and I was concerned about how that was going to work. Barbara decided to pair up with the young fellow beside us, and I ended up with Teresa as my partner. I’m guessing Teresa is several years younger than me. While Barbara is very meek, Teresa tends to lead, which actually helped me at first because she was quicker at picking up the moves. What I realized, however, as we continued was that I needed to lead, and the most effective way for me to do that was to focus on her, feel the rhythm and my balance, and then just move in the way that Bill showed us.

We began with a simple four step that is less about steps and more about shifting balance from leg to leg. Then we added a scissoring motion with the arms that pulled our partners to us. Next he showed us how to spin our partners. That was a challenge for me because of my weak left arm. Bill showed me a right handshake technique, however, that works for me, and soon I was spinning first Barbara and then Teresa. Next we learned a turn for the guys, which was the easiest thing I did. Before our session was over, we were actually dancing. Then Bill had us swap partners, and I again realized how much of what we were doing was about connecting with our partner.

The key lies in balancing with your partner. The guy has to plan his moves in advance, then execute them smoothly. The gal has to be ready for whatever the guy does, and move with him. She can’t anticipate him because if she does she moves out of their balance. I also found that so long as I focused on my partner instead of on myself, the dancing was easier. I had to move with her, and then as we gained balance, gently shift the balance and move into the new pattern.

And isn’t that what the dance of the sexes is all about. We learn to step outside ourselves and connect with our partner. At any moment, only one can lead while the other follows, and if both are in sync, neither will do something that the other finds uncomfortable. I envy the married couples in the class who will go home this week (or I hope they do) and practice. Barbara had to leave before the last dance, and I tried doing the moves by myself, but without a partner to balance me, I couldn’t get into the rhythm.

So if you are married, or if you have just begun a relationship, you might consider ballroom dancing. In addition to great exercise and good clean fun, you might also find that the dancing adds a deeper dimension to your relationship and helps the two of you discover that balance that is at the heart of any good and healthy relationship.

¹ This article was originally posted on my MySpace blog, Friday, September 30, 2005.

P.S.  This article led to my meeting my wife.  While dating, we took a ballroom dancing class together.

© Bill  Stifler, 2005