I'm sorry I missed this entry when you first posted it. I, too, quite like Joseph Campbell.

If I might add to your reading list:

Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion by Thomas A. Tweed is an excellent meditation on the ways in which religion orients us in the world. His inspiration came in 1993 in Miami, Florida, during his attendance at the feast day of Our Lady of Charity, the national patroness of Cuba.

Tweed himself is not Catholic, and the politics of those Cuban Catholic exiles was certainly far to the right of his own, but he felt overcome in the moment by the power of ritual, belief, and practice. It really is an excellent read (and, yes, I shamelessly stole his title for the subtitle of my recent short story chapter because I wanted to evoke the spirit of orienting oneself cosmically, spiritually, and interpersonally).

Another (but much longer) work that significantly shaped how I came to view Christianity in particular was Raymond E. Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament. It is a scholarly, critical examination of each book of the NT, and Brown, a Catholic, takes a moderate (as opposed to liberal or conservative) approach in his discussion.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist family who interpreted the Bible as the literal word-for-word transmission from the mind of God--a view I now recognize as foolish and actually a product of the Age of Reason and science. For the longest time, starting in my teenage years, I rejected that notion of the Bible as the literal word of God and was in fact bitter toward religion, especially Christianity, but I lacked the critical framework to more complexly and completely engage with religious texts and thought.

Brown's book taught me ways in which I could better understand the New Testament critically and as a work of literature (it's actually quite literary!). He taught me to think of the various authors' audiences. For example, John on the Isle of Patmos composed Revelation, and while I had always been taught it was a prophecy for our age and for our future, it was naive of me and my religious instructors to not also think of John's contemporary audience. He didn't just write this for people living 2000 years in the future. Small insights like that broadened my perspective and helped me gain a better appreciation of what religion is and what religion does for people.

Now I must apologize for writing a small manifesto on your blog.

I love the gifts you've shared in this entry, and I'm glad you've found a means of pulling the positive aspects of myth/religion for use in your own life. They can be quite powerful, if only we allow ourselves to be enriched, rather than imprisoned, by them.