As July draws to a close, I think about the span of time, the thirty one days that filled it.  As we all know, not every month has thirty one days; one, as we all know, has, in most years, only twenty-eight.  The other day I was remembering parts of Jean Paul Sartre's play "No Exit."  It's a dark play.  It's not dark because it's full of physical horror but because it is full of a far deeper horror:  the logic of a humanity absent of transcendence.

     Whether a month has thirty-one days or twenty-eight, its days, once they happen, will never return.  They're gone forever.  If, as Sartre writes in this play, hell really is other people, then vanishing days don't really matter:  it's just one less moment of hell on earth.

     If on the other hand transcendence suffuses reality, our days have a different sort of logic.  They're not hell, nor are they the expression of the horror of a life undone.  They are meaningful.  And they are meaningful whether we make them so or not.

     Why else would we bother?

     Perhaps you've heard George Frederick Handel's famous oratorio, Messiah.  Countless church choirs and various secular choruses present it during the Christmas and Easter seasons.  It is loved the world over.  While some like it for its melodies alone, others appreciate its religious sentiments, too.
     Less likely, however, is that you've heard of Handel's "Jupiter" aria.  This aria appears in Handel's Semele, a musical drama in three parts.  Who's Semele?  She is the god Dionysus's earthly mother by Zeus (or to use the Roman word for the chief god of the Greco-Roman pantheon, Jupiter).  Now most of us would not wish to write an aria glorifying a philanderer like Zeus, and that was not Handel's intent, either.  The aria of Jupiter rather serves to signify the way in which a god like Jupiter (Zeus) can, because of his immensely superior power over human beings, have his way in all earthly affairs, and the havoc this often causes.
     On balance, if we believe in a god, most of us would prefer for this god to be morally upright.  We would want this god to refrain from engaging in behavior which we find distasteful.  But this begs the larger question:  how does a god decide what is moral?  And how do we know whether it is indeed moral?
     When we consider Zeus's predilection for earthly women, we wonder about this even more.  That is, which came first:  the chicken or the egg?  Was God moral before we?  Or do we project our morals upon God?
     It's vexing.  Either way, we're only talking to ourselves.  Without genuine transcendence, however, we're spinning our wheels.  When therefore next you listen to Semele, consider how by reflecting our personal foibles in his behavior, Zeus/Jupiter aptly serves to undercut any thought that we can, on our own, decide what is true.

     By the way, I'll be traveling a bit.  See you late next week!

     "It is this, let me tell you--that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone!"  So says Dr. Stockmann in Norwegian playwright Henri Ibsen's "Enemy of the People."  Although from one standpoint this statement may conjure up visions of Friedrich Nietzsche's "Ubermensch," the one who stands above "the herd," to the exclusion of the good of all others, it is, on the other hand, a powerful statement about individual conscience.  For several months Stockmann had striven to convince his city's administrators that the city's waters had been fatally compromised by various effluents of foreign material.  Based on the results of some highly reliable scientific findings, this information, Stockmann argued, should cause the city to refrain from opening up a "Baths" for the tourists who come to visit.  People who come to benefit from the Baths' healing waters, Stockmann said, should not be subjected to such health risk.

     

     Nonsense, said everyone in city government.  The economic benefits of the Baths outweigh public health concerns.  Our livelihoods are far more important than "alleged" threats to our health.  They proceeded to ostracize and shun Stockmann, who responded in turn about the dangers of majority rule, saying that it was a "lie" that the majority always has the truth. 

    Albert Camus makes the same point in his The Plague:  even if many citizens thought the plague sweeping through their city was a hoax, it still killed thousands of people.  Whether it is in terms of politics, culture, economics, or religion, the mere fact of general assent never makes anything true.  Conscience is much more than unquestioned loyalty to an idea, trend, or god.

     

     

     Perhaps you've heard of "Christian Nationalism."  From the standpoint of many believers, Christian Nationalism seems, on paper, a good idea.  Why should not Christian values permeate a nation's culture?

     On the other hand, in a pluralistic society not everyone will or, to a degree, necessarily should, agree on what constitutes value.  Not everyone will want a world grounded with "Christian" values (whatever those are).  No one should be obligated to believe.

     It therefore seems that the onus is on those Christians who would insist that their values are the only ones of "value" to demonstrate that their values are indeed sufficient to bear the weight of their opposites and counters.  If they cannot do this, they are not values worth having, anyway.  An allegedly universal value should be able to encompass and explain all others.  That's its point.  Moreover, there is a vast difference between the person of God and the ways that people develop to explain or justify him.

     Jesus didn't criticize Roman society per se.  He criticized religious hypocrites.

     Have you been to the Great Smokies?  Although I do not frequent parks with relatively low elevation, I know that such parks have a beauty all their own.  Bastions of deciduous forests and lowland wildflowers, reflectors of immense color come the autumn, and lovely in the snow, the Great Smokies hold much treasure for those who enter into them.

     

     Why the Great Smokies?  The alpine heights offer ample opportunity for challenge and adventure, yes, but the Great Smokies, with their more aged peaks and longer history of exploration, provide us with different windows into why we are who we are.  Not only are we creatures who crave boldness, we are creatures who long for stillness.

     Like most animals.  And God.

     A musician, an artist:  colorists consummate, each paints images of the world.  The one does so with his music, the other with her brushes.  Last month, in looking at the music of Robert Schumann, we noted its sense of fantasy and wonder, its blend of reality and magic, the way that its melodies transport us to new lands.  When we turn to the work of the Dutch artist Rembrandt Harenszoon van Rijin, otherwise known as Rembrandt, we stumble into an equally remarkable vista, one of profound detail infused with rich and vibrant color.  We often wonder whether our world is really this amazing.

      Perhaps it is.  Perhaps what Rembrandt most does for us to open our eyes a bit, to allow us to shed our preconceptions about existence, the often utilitarian way that we view being alive, to encourage us to let our imaginations roam to what could be--and what ought to be.  Maybe Rembrandt is showing us how to look for more than we expect to see.

     To see what is really there.  What is, in the "Return of the Prodigal Son" pictured to the left, most working in the lives of those so portrayed:  a deep yearning of transcendent presence for those whom it made.

     It's Bastille Day!  As I write this, French people the world over are celebrating the day in July 1789 when cries for freedom from the tyranny of the French monarchy (and its minions) finally erupted for the latter to see.  Long the symbol of the monarchy's iron grip on power, the Bastille was an fitting place for the Revolution to begin.  And begin it did.

     Yes, the French Revolution was rather bloody, and yes, it killed many innocent people.  No argument there.  Inspired as it was by the American Revolution, however, the French Revolution signaled to the "powers that be" (as the late David Halberstram put it) that from this day forward the lower classes would no longer simply accept their lot and move through life accordingly.  From this day forward, they would seek a greater destiny.  After all, they, too, are beings of immense marvel and potential.

     The French Revolution also served notice to the upper class, the oligarchies of the world (which continue to rule the world today), that their responsibility was not only to themselves.  Of what value is an oligarch's wealth if it is not directed toward the common good?

     We are not here for ourselves.  We are here for each other.

     Although the French Revolution was decidedly secular, it nonetheless demonstrated, whether it intended to or not, that in the biggest possible picture, in a world that God made there is room for everyone to be whom he or she is destined to be.  Everyone.

     It was toward the end of the American Civil War, a particularly tragic moment in the history of the country, that President Abraham Lincoln signed, in 1864, legislation that ordered Yosemite Valley, that Valhalla of towering walls of granite overlooking stunning vistas of lakes, river, and meadow, be set aside and preserved for the enjoyment of prosperity.  It was America's initial foray into the idea of a national park.

     Today, as many people know, today, Yosemite is one of the most visited national parks on the planet.  Its campgrounds are always full, its granite faces always covered with climbers, its backcountry always filled with trekkers:  Yosemite is a prized destination.

    

     How odd, even ironic, then that Yosemite Park's genesis occurred during such a divisive time in America's history.  It is comforting to know that even in the midst of some very trying times legislators were able to look outside of themselves and strike a blow for the greater good.

     As filmmaker Ken Burns observed, the concept of a national park is "America's best idea."  Indeed.  As Henry David Thoreau wrote over a century ago, "In wildness is the preservation of the world."  Although we do not need any more human wildness--debauchery, treachery, and more--today, we can certainly use much more natural wildness:  we need to be challenged by forces outside of ourselves.

     We are little people in a vast, vast universe.

      Isn't truth a funny word?  Most of us appreciate it, most of us desire it. Very few of us, however, can define it.  Philosophers tell us there are essentially two ways of looking at truth.  The correspondence theory suggests that truth is simply that which corresponds to reality.  While this seems logical enough, it raises other questions:  how do we know what is real and how do we therefore know what corresponds to it?  Taking a slightly different tack, the coherence theory holds that truth is the sum total of what seems apparent, logical, and right.  Truth is not fixed but is rather what appears to be most correct based on the prevailing evidence.  Yet how do we decide what is most correct and right?
     Though I see virtue in both perspectives, I mention them to make a larger point:  the necessity of truth.  We need truth to be truth.  Otherwise, we became like the protagonist of Ernest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, who, in the final scene of the novel, after seeing his wife die giving birth to his child, then seeing the child die, too, "put on his hat and walked into the rain."
     Unless we let truth be truth, we will be ever walking, too. 

     I do not dispute that these things are true.  But such laudation is nothing more than a being congratulating herself on being herself!  It has no real basis in external fact.  It's praise given through the lens of the one praising.  This is in large part why various scientists and philosophers have concluded that, on balance, human beings are little more than the accidental products of a lengthy evolutionary process. Outside of themselves, they have no meaning.

     Most of us like to think that human beings are special, even holy or sacred.  If we're asked why, however, many of us will likely reply that, well, isn't it obvious?  Are not human beings capable of amazing things?  Are not human beings extraordinary in ways that the other animals are not?  And so on.
     Unfortunately, they're absolutely right.  Unless there is something bigger than the human being.  The Zohar, part of the legendary, and largely misunderstood, Jewish Kabbalah, makes the point that the human being is a creature, yes, but it is a creature that it is an event.  The human being is an event in a drama in a world made by an eventful God.
     Indeed, if the world is an accident, it's not even a play.

    

     A few weeks ago, inspired by a Netflix series which my wife and I watched earlier this year, I decided to read Anne of Green Gables.  For the uninitiated, it's a story of a girl named, naturally, Anne (a girl who always emphasizes that it is "Ann with an e") who, after being orphaned when she was only a few months old, comes to live with a brother and sister at their farm, Green Gables, in the town of Avonlea.
     A bright and vivacious red head, Anne, though she initially commits a number of social faux pas(s), ends up endearing herself to the entire community.  As the story ends, Anne has finished her first year of teacher training (she wants to be a teacher) and has won a scholarship for four additional years of study at an area college.  However, Matthew, the brother, has just died of a heart attack.  Anne then decides to stay in Avonlea and teach there so as to help Marilla (the sister) keep the Green Gables farm going.  She will catch up with college later.
     Over twenty years ago, my wife and I had opportunity to see the house on Prince Edward Island where Lucy Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables (and many sequels).  As I reflect on our brief tour, I realize afresh that the idea of Anne flowed out of a world rich in natural wonder.  It's a lovely house on a lovely island.  So when I read the final lines of the novel, as Anne says, "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world," I see the wisdom of an observation of Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  "Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice," he said, "and you will be convinced at once [of the presence of God]."
     As Anne well knew, life goes up and life goes down, but as long as there is transcendent presence, life remains.

     A couple of days ago, July 1, Canada celebrated its Independence Day.  On this day in 1867, Canada officially became independent of the British crown (though still a member of the British Commonwealth), free to pursue its own destiny.  It's cause for much rejoicing.
     Tomorrow, July 4, America celebrates its Independence Day.  It is the day in 1776 that the gathered colonists announced that the thirteen colonies would henceforth be free of the British crown.  Although the pandemic will subdue the celebrations, many Americans will commemorate the day.
     American writer Mark Twain once observed, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."  As we read of mainland China's new restrictions on the residents of Hong Kong, the recent "election" of Russian Vladimir Putin for a term lasting until 2036, and the continuing crackdowns on individual rights in too many other parts of the world, we have new reason to consider the wisdom of Twain's assertion.
     Theologies of God and rulers notwithstanding, in these days of celebrations of "freedom," we do well to realize that although there is not a nation standing apart from the eternal agency of God, it is nonetheless up to us to construct the governments that rule them.
     Freedom is not to reject all commitment and responsibility--that's fatuous--but rather to dedicate ourselves to the greater good of all.

     Ein Sof?  In German, this means "the infinite."  We humans have great difficulty in grasping the essence of the infinite.  Indeed, in order to do so, we would need to spend an infinite amount of time to do so!  We'd never quite get there.  It's a bit like the Greek Stoic philosopher Zeno's paradox of the tortoise and the rabbit.  Although the rabbit can outrun the tortoise, given the infinite number of divisions between a beginning and end, it will never, technically, really outrun it!
     Our Jewish brethren often use Ein Sof to describe God.  God is so big and so incomprehensible that, they tell us, we're better off calling him simply "the infinite."  Regardless of how you might feel about God, you must admit the wisdom of this insight.  If God exists, and if he is worthy of our attention, then he must indeed be a presence whose magnitude immeasurably exceeds our own.
     Otherwise, he wouldn't be much of a God, would he?

Gotthold Lessing, one of the leading lights of the Western European eighteenth century Enlightenment, once said that,

"If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand, and say, ‘Father, I will take this one—the pure Truth is but for You alone’!”

What are we to make of Lessing's words?  If you've seen the movie "Matrix," you may recall a scene, early on in the movie, in which "Neo" meets "Morpheus."  After inviting Neo to sit down, Morpheus holds out his hand.  In it he has two pills.  One is red, the other is blue.  If you, Neo, take the blue pill, Morpheus says, your life will remain exactly the same.  But if you take the red, he says, you will enter into a journey in which you will see no end.  

As anyone who has seen this movie knows, Neo takes the red.  And his adventure begins.  Think about Lessing's "left hand" as the red pill, and "Truth" as the blue.  Though Lessing respects God's truth, the blue pill, he would rather have the red pill:  the journey.

We walk a delicate line between searching for truth and knowing that it is already there.  But we cannot do otherwise:  we're human beings.