Saying the Man into Being: A Spiritual Reflection on the Odyssey

We need to see the man, say what incantation is necessary to be the man.

Homer’s Odyssey begins:

ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον,

Of the man to me speak, Muse, “many ways”

Notice that the Muse comes between the man and his chief characteristic in the order of the words of the line. The man is a man of many ways (“tricky” like Brer Rabbit). Even the trickster runs out of tricks when facing the gods or fate. Our hero is like this at the start of the Odyssey. He has fallen and he cannot get up.

Put in better English:

Speak to me of the Man, Muse, of many ways.

The Muse is not singing, but speaking. We do not need to dream about the man, or admire him, or remember him, but see him. We need the Man. What man?

We are not told. The start of the Odyssey, an epic poem all about the journey of Odysseus, is hesitant to say his name. The hero is not called by his proper name until line twenty-one. Until then, he is the man of “many ways” or of constant sorrows.

What does it mean for the Man to have many ways? He is the man who hears: “No way!” and says: “New way!” The stubborn man, the narcissist, hears “no way” and bulls ahead. Put a wall in his way and the proud man will try to run through the wall. Sometimes this works and his pride increases until eventually he smashes all around him into ruin. This is not being a man of many ways, but a man of one way: my way.

Never call for such a man, follow such a man, or be such a man.

The hero, the man worth following, will fail, but will find a way. He never confuses the means with the end. Homer’s unnamed “man” at the start of Odyssey makes a mistake: he thinks his job is to stay alive. He does stay alive, but he is miserable. He learns, by constant sorrow, that he must get home. A man cannot live like a god, Odysseus is miserable on Calypso’s island, even though it is Greek Disneyland. He wants his wife and home, even though the island and the goddess there are “better.”

Too many programs, schools, and colleges are run as if our goal is to “stay alive.” This cannot be. We are mortal man doomed to die and nobody can win at that game. Instead, the goal of every ministry, school, or program must be to find our way to a home fit for men. That home cannot be some airy heaven, but must be middle earth where we were created to dwell. It is not good for men to be alone and so we need women and men to see the entire image of what it is to be human.

Every task we do must be homeward bound. We create images of home here, so that we can find our eternal home tomorrow. This is not a dream, but reality: we have a home and the builder and maker is God, but the city is for men.