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 The Hero’s Journey: Am I Done Yet?

Rev. L. Annie Foerster
February 3, 2002

One of the hardest chores of public speakers (and persons on heroic journeys) is to know when we're done. The heroic seeker hears a call to a new vocation and sets off to school. But we must be leery when the seeker comes almost to the conclusion of that journey only to hear another call, in another field, requiring another major, and starts the search all over again;
without ending; never graduating. Or, there is the task force that seeks a solution to the group's problems. It makes public its findings and submits its recommendations. But we must ask if it finds too much pleasure in the process, and none in the resolution, when it "discovers" another problem it must solve, makes itself into a standing body, and goes on and on and on and on.

So what is the poor hero to do in the middle of the journey? Is it time to quit?  In this series of sermons exploring the mythological hero's journey as a model for our own lives, we've discovered that the journey is often begun in fear and unknowing. We've learned that there is help and to refuse it is not noble, but foolish. We've found that a goal is something to work toward, but with flexibility. Having been reluctant to go, we went anyway; it would be embarrassing after all that overcoming of fear to quit too soon.  Finding good help, we took it up; it would be impolite to turn it away now that we are about to reap the rewards. And, having set our goals, can we really say that our transformation can supercede them, change them?  Excuse me, but did anyone bring a mirror? Am I transformed yet? Am I done?

When I reached my sixteenth birthday, my parents gave me a card showing a wide-eyed and obviously newly pubescent girl.  She was assailed by her mother on one side and her father on the other.  The mother was saying, "Stick a fork in her, paw, and see if she's done." My parents thought this was hilarious and lost no opportunity to repeat it to everyone who came to celebrate with me. I thought it was demonically stupid, but, then, I felt that way about most things my parents did at that age. Yet, today, I can remember no other birthday card I have ever received.  This message has become a mantra.  "Stick a fork in me and see if I'm done yet." Would that it were that easy.

Well, how hard could it be? Most of us who find ourselves on a hero's journey had some sense going into it what we were about, didn't we?  The degree earned, the new job sought, the marriage ceremony performed, the goal set out in advance-aren't completion of these indications of a journey's end?   Don't we get to name in advance the conclusion of the journey? Maybe yes; maybe no. We really don't know until we are there.

The goals we set at the beginning of our journey are often our wishes, our dreams, our desires.  They are not yet tempered by the insights of struggle and trial.  They are often confused by the need to choose between equally tempting paths.  Our goals are, like our prayers, often answered differently from what we intended, but answered nevertheless. When Jack set off to climb the beanstalk, for instance, he did not know how high, how far away its top was. He had no goal except curiosity: to get away, to search, to seek. He could have returned after half the distance and boasted, "I have climbed farther than anyone in the village and I have seen a view of the world none of you have seen."  But, was he done yet?

In the midst of our adventures, it is often hard to know if we have achieved our goals or, more confusing, if they were pertinent to begin with.  The next logical test, it seems to me, is to ask the question, "Have I learned anything?" Lessons learned are often the subjects of myths and other heroic tales. Beauty learns from her experience with the Beast that love is separate from appearances, and marriage (the symbol of wholeness) is her reward. But in the tale of Blue beard, which begins with marriage, the young wife learns the hard lesson of curiosity (here, another version of seeking) when she opens the closet door to find the bodies of her husband's previous wives. Her journey is just begun. She must yet find courage; she must yet seek help; she must yet grow out of naïveté and into maturity before she is granted release from her fears and her trials.  Lessons can be confusing signs. If they are not the ones you sought, you might not recognize them. If they are not the ones you want, you may be tempted to refuse them and keep going on and on and on.

Perhaps there is a clue in the fear with which we began. What if I realize one day that I am no longer afraid?  Oh, blessed gift, to be released from fear. Is this not the end?  In the story of Hansel and Gretel, the hero is described in two parts. Hansel is the optimistic side of the heroic archetype.  It is he who encourages the fearful Gretel, tells her that all will be well. Gretel, who represents the dark side of the hero, is dependent upon his courage.  But when the witch locks Hansel in a cage to fatten him, Gretel learns self- sufficiency. In the end, she discovers in herself a hidden bravery. When she pushes the witch into the oven, the journey is over and they live as one with the riches they find in the witch's cottage. With no fear between them, they are able to find their way home.

In the Irish myth retold by Joseph Campbell, the Prince of the Lonesome Island rises from the spinning couch on the seventh day of his sojourn and decides to go home. We aren't told how he knows that the journey is over. He eats, drinks, provisions himself for the return and stops to write a thank you note. He is a hero utterly without fear. This tale, says Campbell, "signifies that the hero is a superior person," born to symbolic royalty, recognized as an incarnate god. "Where the usual hero would face a test," wrote Campbell, "the elect encounters no delays, makes no mistakes."

But what of the rest of us?  What of the hero who, as I suggested before, has conquered his fear of public speaking to such a degree that he does not know when to go home? Is his success so delicious that he cannot bring himself to rise from the spinning couch—which symbolizes the ongoingness of life and the dizzying hubris of the ego—but decides the journey is about going round and round, on and on and on? What of the hero who is a seeker of love, fearful that she will never find it, who after kissing dozens of frogs, at last discovers her prince charming? "Fear is no more; success is mine," she says. What an extraordinarily powerful feeling? "I wonder if I could do it again." Does she, or he, keep on the journey of conquest out of habit and addiction; or do such ordinary heroes realize that once their initial fear is gone, they will be obligated to face new challenges, new fears? Lack of fear doesn't seem to offer the guidelines we had hoped.

I find clues for myself buried within my own stories. When I embarked on the call to professional ministry, for instance, I was sore afraid. There were the mundane ego fears: "What if I couldn't pass the tests-the literal tests of scholarly ability? What if I didn't have the right stuff? What if I passed all the tests and no one wanted me?" But stronger than these was the fear that perhaps I had misunderstood the call. I gathered my helpers—my good friends—and asked them to verify my choice. They were willing to do that.  Still, what if they were wrong? I appealed to magic, and said I would not go—could not go—unless I sold my house. Within three weeks I had a buyer with cash. Still, what if that were merely a coincidence? With no where to go I moved in with a friend and promptly got a case of shingles—a biological outburst of my stress, of my disbelief. Now here was a hero's test I could sink my teeth into, one in which I could prove my mettle.  I drove across country, with leg aflame and throbbing, never complaining (oh, maybe just a little; but who was there to hear it?), never doubting I would arrive at my physical destination. But I wasn't done yet. I wasn't even close.  Looking back, I know now, that particular journey did not end until the day I said to myself, "Would I have believed anyone if they had said, 'You shouldn't go'?" It didn't end until I was able to admit that if I hadn't sold the house I would have rented it and gone anyway. It didn't end until I was able to acknowledge my own intuitive wisdom for the call. That was the journey. Seminary was only the location, not the destination. My intuition had been calling out for years and I had refused to heed it. I had refused great adventures, marvelous journeys, for lack of trust in myself. This inner journey toward self had been necessary before any others could be taken up.

There are always outward signs—pointing arrows, neon welcomes, thunderous applause—that signify our journey is over. But I wouldn't count on them. They are sometimes fickle. They are often misguiding. They are enticements to our going on too long. We must learn to accept subtler suggestions. I would suggest a feeling of Integrity; that feeling that says, there can be no other way. "I must rise from this place, prepare myself, and give thanks."  I would suggest Congruity; that feeling that welcomes us to whole selves, inside and outside one, Hansel and Gretel melded. "I am afraid but I have every right to be afraid for there is much to harm me, so I will proceed with caution and courage." I would suggest Harmony; that feeling of oneness with the whole of creation; the inner ear that hears the music of the firmament and chooses something like a star to be guided by. "Say something to us we can learn by heart and when alone repeat. And it says, “I burn." In self-awareness and belief in our own powers, we need not ask for Fahrenheit or Centigrade. We choose, we hear, we know. Awareness feels like being awake for the very first time, as Sleeping Beauty wakened to find herself having died to the world and been reborn in a new one.

Carol Pearson, with lyricism and economy, describes the hero's journey thus: "We begin to yearn for something beyond ourselves and become Seekers, searching for that ineffable something that will satisfy. Answering the call and embarking on the journey, we find that soon we are experiencing privation and suffering, as the Destroyer takes away much that had seemed essential to our lives. Initiation through suffering, however, is complemented by an initiation into Love, as we find ourselves in love with people, causes, places, work. This love is so strong it requires commitment-and we are no longer free. The treasure that emerges out of this encounter with death and love is the birth of the true self: We become the Creator of our own life.  These four abilities-to strive, to let go, to love and to create-teach us the basic process of dying to the old self and giving birth to the new."

To become the Creator of our own life would be to have knowledge of beginnings and endings. It would be to have the vision of clarity that helps us to see through journeys whose beginnings and endings overlap. It would be the strength to know endings; the courage to stop fighting; the acceptance of rewards deserved.

Am I done yet?  Why is it even important to know?  Because the next step on the journey—called The Return—is so very important.  We wouldn't want to miss it by being enmeshed in going on and on and on.  Look to the stars for inspiration; but know that their song will be sung in your own heart.

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