It Started up on Mount Olympus

Recently I read a really interesting book called Mr g.  It's a fictional novel about the concept of God, written by Alan Lightman.  After reading it, I had this feeling that I used to have every time I left my favorite class at Syracuse University.

I took Ancient Greek Religion as an elective when I was a senior. The professor would tell us stories about the ancient Greek gods and myths.  We met once a week for three hours; I think it was every Thursday night. Syracuse University is on a hill, and the building that we took the class in overlooked the valley.

I remember that we would have class, and we would all be entranced by the stories the professor told us, and then we would walk outside, and it would be dark, and, of course, it would be cold.  And we would stand out there overlooking this valley, with the stars in the sky, and all the lights in the valley, and we would all have this really weird feeling - like we were on Mount Olympus, like we were part of the stories that the professor told us.  And what's even more interesting is that there’s actually a part of the Syracuse campus called Mount Olympus.  There are a couple of dorms there, and I lived in one of them when I was a freshman.  It all kind of ties together.  Every week I had this feeling coming out of the class - like I had just heard these wonderful stories from this wonderful storyteller, and all of us felt the same way as we walked out and saw the stars and lights. It was really mystical.

I often think back to that mystical feeling.  I had a similar experience when I climbed Mount Fuji.  It is tradition in Shinto, the major religion in Japan, that you must climb to the top of Mount Fuji and see the sunrise once in your life.  A colleague of mine decided to do this, so we climbed that night and saw the sunrise from the top of the mountain.  Mount Fuji is a dormant volcano, and at the top of the mountain, right at the lip of the crater, is a Shinto shrine.  People have tied bells onto it, and so it's dark, and it's cloudy, and it's snowing, and there’s a crater behind you, and all of these bells are ringing on the shrine.  It’s a really eerie feeling, and it's really mystical.

To this day, I still enjoy mythology.  I like to read about how the Greek gods morphed into the Roman Gods, and where there is some commonality with the Norse Gods.  I also try to look for ways in which any of this may have become part of the major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  Before college, I used to read about the Norse Gods like Odin and Thor.  I'm not exactly sure why they are more interesting to me than the Greek Gods; maybe because I read about them first, in high school.

While I was at Syracuse, I felt really connected to the universe, and this feeling came back to me after reading Mr g, which I highly recommend.  I hope you’ll read the book, and if you’re lucky, it’ll leave you with the same mystical feeling - like the gods are right there with you.    

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