What, in this increasingly scattered age, an age in which all events seem to flow into and out of one another with very little, overall, to say, an age that reduces all human activity to actions and reactions of genetic constitution, bereft of any larger point beyond simple pleasure, does history mean?  In his Force and Freedom, nineteenth century historian Jacob Burkhardt argued that history means nothing, that it is no more than a series of events and happenstances of will.  Karl Marx, whose name needs no introduction, also writing in the nineteenth century, believed history was the story of class conflict, and that the human being was simply made to live, produce, and die.
     We could go on.  Yes, life is grand, and yes, life is wonderful, and yes, life can be highly meaningful, but when we step back and look at the span of our days--and those of every everyone else--what do they, in the big picture, really mean?



     Ilya Glazunov, a Russian artist who died a few weeks ago, thought otherwise.  In one of his most memorable paintings, he depicted the sundry and diverse events of history in an intriguing web of form and connection.  He crowned these with an image of Jesus, hovering above, the ultimate integrating point, the fount of meaning.  Take away the image and the painting becomes just another effort to come to grips with the interminality of human endeavor.  Retain it, and history becomes something entirely different.
     Life becomes more than mere life.  It becomes eternal.  Eternally purposeful, eternally existing, eternally present.