In The Image
I find myself thinking of how the myths we grow up with make connections with the values we find oursevles with as adults. As I was watching The Lord of the Rings (I possess all three extended editions) this weekend I was thinking about how taken I was with the mythos of courage, perseverence, and honor. These are cultural universals and although we can learn them from experience and examples, we seem to get the most of our education on ideals from stories. Stories can be grandiose, they can be embellished, and it is easier for things to exist in story rather than how life most often manifests itself.
As I think about how universal our myths are, it makes me wonder where we get them from - and why we need to have them, particularly when as ideals, they can't really exist1.
I suspect that as humans, this is a part of the image of God2. This is why we all have a hunger for myths that teach us about something higher than what the natural world exposes. Another way of looking at it is that we superimpose onto the natural world the notions of ideals that we know can't exist, but which we're willing to strive for -
Maybe God represents that "perfect" ideal in all those things: beauty, honor, courage, truth - and in a tainted world it's that after effect of His image that makes us, in the most true and the most misguided ways, seek them. We tell ourselves stories about them: truth, nobility, honor, and love while pressing on in what we know as reality.
I think of the guy in the parking garage, passing the night by with a tale of halflings, magic, orcs, and dragons.
1In a "natural" world, devoid of the metaphysical.
2Read it for yourself here if you are unfamiliar with the Judeo-Christian idea.
9:59:56 PM 
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