X Is For Excalibur

I know that "Excalibur" doesn't start with the letter X. But the only words that I could think of that start with an X are xenophobia and xylophone.

Besides, I've always been a fan of the Arthurian legend and Excalibur figures large in that myth. Excalibur was, if you will remember, Arthur's sword, “the Sword in the Stone” of T. H. White fame.

The story, with a bow to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Alfred Lord Tennyson Thomas Mallory, and the afore-mentioned White, goes something like this: Arthur, the product of an illicit encounter between Uther Pendragon and Igerna, wife of Uther's enemy Gorlois of Tintagel, is spirited away by the wizard Merlin and fostered far from the halls of power.

Then, when he is but fifteen and serving as a page or squire among his foster father's retinue, Arthur encounters Excalibur for the first time. There is a legend, within this legend, that whoever pulls the sword from the stone is destined to be king. All the bravest, strongest, most ambitious knights in the realm grapple with that sword but none of them are able to budge it until Arthur comes along.

It is fate, or kismet (the title of a more recent re-telling of the Arthurian legend). There is no outward manifestation of Arthur's kinghood – he is a lowly bastard, a squire, a gawky teenager – and he himself has no inkling or ambition until he grips that sword by the hilt and pulls.

I suspect that part of the reason the Arthurian legend (and other such legends) speaks to us over a thousand years later is because there is, lying dormant within the husk of rumor, fantasy, romaniticism and wishful thinking, a viable kernel of truth. When that seed is planted in fertile minds, it grows into reality.

There is for each of us, I think, an Excalibur. It may not be – it probably won't be – a sword, but there is something just waiting to reveal to us our true purpose. It is meant only for us; no one else can either draw it from the stone or wield its power.

The problem is, often we do not recognize it or own it. The Arthurian legend would never have come into being if Arthur had ignored that sword in the stone or if, having tripped over it, he had assumed that he was too lowly, too powerless, to even try to pull it free.

My invitation to you as we approach the end of this abecedary is to find your Excalibur. I don't care if you are fifteen or fifty or seventy-five. I don't care if there is no outward indication whatsoever that you might be special. Find your Excalibur.

You may find it in the most unexpected places, under the least promising circumstances. Wherever you find it, whatever the circumstances, find your purpose. Grasp it and pull hard. That is the only way you will ever be all that you were intended to be.