This semester, in Myth, we watched a film, Finding Joe: The Hero's Journey, it was during our Hero section of the class so it really came as no surprise. However, the film had a strange effect on me. The entire time I watched it I had an overwhelming want to cry, I'm not sure why but I did. And it made me want to know my purpose in life and to go after it with everything I've got.
After watching the film in class, we were given an assignment, to talk about an event in our lives and then run it through the Hero's Journey. Here's mine:
My hero’s journey was my journey to finding and defining my idea of
faith.
1.
The Call:
The summer before I was a sophomore in high school, my
grandpa died. I was extremely close to him, and losing someone so close to me
lead me on a really dark, and faithless path for three years.
2.
Fear:
After his death, everything I thought I knew was questioned. Not
just faith but religion, because these had always been really important in my
household. The biggest fear was not knowing what was going on, where to look
to, and what to expect. Why would a just God doing something as damaging as
allowing something like this happen when it was so unexpected. I was really
angry and depressed and that scared me, because they were emotions I had never
truly felt before.
3.
Road of Trials:
I had always been an active member of my church youth group
and other activities along those lines and I went to church every Sunday. I
started to pull out of the group and I stopped going to church regularly. I was
pushed and pulled in every direction when it came to all things religious.
4.
Apotheosis:
My senior year of
high school, my AP English teacher gave a prompt in which he asked us to write
about a time in which we were greatly affected and to lead us up to the event
and tell us everything about it, I chose to write about the death of my
grandpa. Until that point, I had never really addressed the effect that my
grandpa’s death had had on me. I surprised even myself with this realization.
5.
Battling of Dragon(s):
I think that there
were probably quite a few dragons, every time I fought with my mom over a
church function, or every time I fought with myself over what I was feeling but
the biggest dragon was when I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo, which was
for my grandpa. I begged my mom off and on for two years; she finally agreed
that I could when I was 18. After that concession, I begged for her to get it
with me. After some prodding, a few months after I turned 18, she finally
agreed. So on June 16th, 2010, 4 years later on the anniversary of
his death, my mom and I got our matching tattoos in honor of my grandpa on our
wrists.
6.
The Return:
The tattoo was the last step after a long, sad journey back
to my faith. This allowed me to give my grief a face and it allowed me to
accept it finally, and start to move on. I have a constant reminder of our bond
and I constantly get to answer questions about it, I think that’s my grandpa’s
way of saying he’s still watching. I now have a renewed faith, it is stronger
and different than before. Before I believed in God because I thought I had to,
it was the way I was raised, after those years I now realized that my faith is
entirely my own and it is what I make of it, it is no one else’s and no else
needs to understand it, it’s my own personal relationship with God.
There's just something so cathartic about writing!
xoxo
Jordan
Fantastic film... I found an interview with the director, Pat Solomon recently that explains how he became the hero of his own story while making it (http://empiricalmag.blogspot.com/2012/12/from-empirical-archives-finding-your.html). Something interesting to look at if you liked the movie, definitely put it into perspective for me.
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