Objectives
you should be able to define, discuss, or describe the following terms or phrases, or respond to the questions, as they relate to the ideas developed by Sexon:
Introduction:
 religion as being “lured” and “integrative play”
 aims: illuminate the sacred in the ordinary; collapse the rigid sacred-profane distinction
 metaphor
 religion as a making, a fabrication, an aesthetic endeavor
Chapter 1: Boxes: Improvising the Sacred
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What is the point of the dogweed berries story?
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Religion/sacred does not reside in things, but in metaphorical relationships & experiences of depth
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Religion as quality of experience
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A dualistic worldview
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P. 7, “People who assert, ‘Religious, oh, I’m not very,” have unwittingly affirmed the basis of the system they claim to reject.” Explain what Sexson means here.
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P. 7: What is meant by religion as the “consecration of experience”?
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Allegory – what is allegory?
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P. 16: Sexson lists complaints and challenges to her exposition. What are these, and how does she answer them?
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Distinguish the sentimental and monumental from the religious
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What is Sexson’s point in the section on postcards?
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What does Sexson mean to evoke in her discussion of “boxes.” What is the religious significance of boxes and “boxes”?
Chapter 2: Weaving Lies and Lives Together
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She opens with a set of questions. Consider the final one: What happens when we can no longer tell the stories of gods now forgotten? Do you agree that this loss lead to a “world thinned, faded, and made more fragile”? Explain.
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Summarize the story of Isis. Why does Sexson tell this story?
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What does Sexson mean by “making text” of our lives? How is religion “an act of reading”?
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P. 31: Do you agree that ours is a time of a “literacy crisis and a disengagement from traditional religious texts.” If so, given that the “big three” western monotheisms are “religions of the book,” then “what form,” asks Sexson, “will the making of sacred now take?”
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P. 31 - Fundamentalism. How does Sexson describe or understand fundamentalism? With what does she contrast fundamentalism?
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P. 32. “Reality can be discovered only be reading it.” What is the epistemology (theory of knowledge or understanding) that informs this claim. Do you agree? Do we “read” reality or do we “uncover”, “discover,” “find” reality? Objectivism; realism – interpretive; constructivist
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P. 34 “secular history”; how is secular history mythic?

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P. 35: What is the central metaphor in Taoism?
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Play; transgression
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What is the point of the cemetery story, pp. 37-39.
Chapter 3: Personal Events and Cultural Dreams
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Memory as “storying the present”
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Repetition, mingling, juxtaposition, as these relate to processes of memory
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Mnemosyne
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Parable – what is a parable?
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Personal memories: dying, changing state; first memories
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“larger designs” that channel or pattern our memories/narratives of our memories
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P. 48 – religion as “repository”
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Platonic memory (recollecting, recovery of original knowledge)
Chapter 4: The First Act Repeated: Myth and Contemporary Consciousness
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Myth
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Archetype
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Story
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P. 57: “If we live in a culture without gods, without cohesive stories, then what sorts of stories will we make?”
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There is a long excursion on Sexson’s experience in working with kids making a Christmas play.
What is the point of this story?
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P. 68: “God and Moses are no longer responsible for the Hebrew canon, yet the antiquated notion persists that myth must be more than the work of human, articulate, creative individuals assisted by their communal experience.” Does this notion actually persist? Does it persist in you?
Chapter 5 The Flea’s Shoes: Mistrust of the Image
1.
p. 70 – “our iconoclastic heritage” (Q: What is iconoclasm? What events is she referring to here?)
2.
p. 70-71 – creation stories: the gods as artists at play/work; Q: To what extent are play, creativity, and aesthetics part of how we think about and understand religion? Can you think of examples? Is religion playful?
3.
The chapter unfolds through a series of “definitions” of art.
4.
The Santa Claus problem; Q: Is Santa real?
5.
Def. VI –Q: What is the point of the story of the flea’s shoes? (p. 76) Q: Imagine what Sexson might have to say about my asking you this question.
6.
P. 77 – art and being caught, lured, “taken-in”; art and religion linked to ontological needs, experiences.
7.
Def. VIII – Art is ordinary; yet art makes the ordinary special/unique.

8.
P. 78 – “The betrayal of the aesthetic”; our “iconoclastic heritage”. Q: Can you think of some examples of the “betrayal of the aesthetic” in contemporary culture? What is out relationship to art and aesthetics? (See # 1, above)
Chapter 6 The Man and Woman-Eating Plant: Imagery and Iconoclasm
1.
Q: Why is it that, as Sexson notes, stories of creation and creativity often spring from acts of transgression? Do you find it odd that transgression plays such a central role in world religions and mythology? (p. 85)
2.
Q: What kinds of mythological figures are associated with transgression?
3.
Page 86 – Q: What are the two types of religion identified by Sexson? Can give some examples?
Sexson identities two types of religion. These are?
4.
Page 86 – At the heart of culture, Sexson suggests, are “base metaphors.” Q: What are some base metaphors in contemporary North American culture? In world religions?
5.
Sexson writes of the “treachery of females” in the Hebrew Bible, and associates this with certain qualities. Q: What are these qualities? (pp. 87-89).
6.
Q: In what ways are labyrinths, riddles and jokes similar?
Chapter 7 The Inward Text: Dream as Scripture
1.
Western culture’s ambivalent attitude towards dreams. (103-105)
2.
Q: What are the “conspicuously traditional religious functions” of dreams? (p. 103)
3.
Q: What are some of the qualities of dreams that may lead to being “suspicious” of them? Turn this question around: What are the characteristics (beliefs, attitudes, values) of a religion or culture that tends to be suspicious of dreams? (Sexson makes some observations relevant to this question, throughout this chapter.)
4.
Q: What are the reasons Sexons gives for rejecting the notion that dreams are art forms? How does she counter these rejections? (pp. 109-112).
5.
Q: Did you have any interesting dreams after reading this chapter?
Chapter 8 The Make Believe of Belief: Deliteralizing and Remythologizing
1.
If iconoclasm once meant demythologizing and smashing images, Sexson suggests that today’s iconoclasm has to do with image making, poetics, aesthetics, and remythologizing.
2.
“There is a form of demythologizing that does not enhance mature development but simply inhibits the essential quality of metaphorical vision. The task for the contemporary mind is to deliteralize and remythologize.” (pp. 120-121). Q: Can you think of examples of
“demythologizing that does not enhance mature development?”