Buried in Celtic mythology is the story of a young man named Cuhulain.  Why Cuhulain?    He is a youth of great insight, courage, and vigor.  He leads, he conquers, he inspires.  He overcomes obstacles, he wins battles.  What's not to like?
     
     As I was discussing Cuhulain's story with a group of students last week, a number of them pointed to the numerous parallels between his acts and those of countless other heroes through the ages.  Quite true.  And that's the point.  Despite our many cultural differences, we human beings generally cluster around the same motifs of existence.  To use Friedrich Nietzsche's memorable words, "Ecce Homo":  behold the human!


     Sure, we can amass much evidence for the evolutionary development of the human race, and sure, we can proffer copious accounts of how humans have engendered, through various forms of emergent complexity and properties, personality, eccentricities, and the like.  Moreover, yes, we can affirm that we are as much creatures of divine activity as we are creatures of materiality, history, and being.
     
What we still experience difficulty understanding is something author Julia Kristeva pointed out many years ago:  humans have an insatiable desire to believe.  We may know who we are, but we still cannot decide why we are.

     Perhaps you've read Julia Lovell's new book on Maoism.  It's quite an impressive study.  Its central point, however, is clear:  decades after his death, Mao continues to influence people around the world.
     And we might want to ask why.  Why is a man who deliberately caused the death of tens of millions through warfare, famine, and "cultural" revolution still revered by thousands of other people?
     Yesterday, I talked about freedom and responsibility.  Mao preached freedom.  He engendered hope, hope that oppression could be quashed, that the burdens of tyranny could be arrogated for all time. It is a hope to which those of us who live in the "free" West cannot necessarily relate:  in many ways, it's not in our categories.  It's not part of our worldview.
     Not that I excuse Mao's excesses.  Not at all.  My point is that we who do not know a condition intimately ought not to condemn, immediately, those who do.  We ought not reject those who pursue something with which we are so familiar we cannot begin to grasp life without it.
     After all, did not the Sanhedrin, the council of first century Jewish leaders who, largely, opposed Jesus and his teachings, condemn him because they were unwilling to picture life without the traditions with which they were so familiar?
     Almost always, there's a delicate balance in how we interpret the activity of God.

     While traveling in the West recently, I came upon, in a thrift shop, a book about Glenn Exum.  Who was he?  Exum was one of the early climbers in Wyoming's Grand Teton mountain range and made a number of first route ascents on its peaks.  He also founded, with Paul Petzoldt (who in turn founded a company that manufactures headlamps and rock climbing equipment), the leading climbing school in the Tetons.

     The book's introduction was written by Yvon Chouinard who, some readers may know, founded the iconic and hugely successful outdoor clothing company Patagonia.  In the introduction, Chouinard identifies Exum with a quote of famous French adventurer Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  Saint Exupery's observation is that, "With freedom comes an acceptance of responsibility."

     Not that any number of other people haven't made similar observations, but reading it in a book about Exum made me think about the idea of freedom in today's world.  We love being free, don't we?  We love being able to make decisions and choices, we love the opportunity to plan our future unhindered by any outside force.  Unfortunately, as we all know, too many people in this vast planet do not experience this degree of freedom.  Day after day, and year after year, they labor under oppressive economic and political systems, toiling their entire lives in the darkness of bondage.  It's tragic--and not what God wants for his human creation.

     For those of us who enjoy being "free" (and this is a loaded and ambiguous term), however, we have the greater responsibility.  We are called to use our freedom with wisdom and care, to use it not to seek our own aggrandizement, but to pursue the greater good of all.  Ours is the far more weighty calling, the far heavier onus.

     But what better way to live our lives?

     
     1492.  It's one of the most pivotal years in human history.  Humans of two hemispheres, neither of whom had been aware of the other, suddenly were, almost overnight, finding themselves confronting worlds that literally blew their collective minds.  No one would ever be the same.


     Sadly, however, although 1492 may have been a momentuous and lucrative year for many Europeans, it was a terrible one for the natives of the Americas.  Hence, even though earlier this week, we remembered Columbus Day, it is perhaps more appropriate to term it, as many are doing, "Indigenous Peoples Day."  After all, it is the natives of the Americas who, far more than the Europeans who slaughtered them, deserve to be remembered.  It is they who have suffered most.

     The worst of it is that in too many instances this slaughter was justified in the name of Christianity.  It was an awful stain on the love of God.

     Historian Erna Paris once observed that, "Attaching God to history is the most powerful nationalism of all."  Whenever we try to juxtapose God and the history we are trying to create, we blur a line we cannot possibly cross:  the boundary between what is here and what is not, the difference between the visible speculations of finitude and the hidden certitudes of infinity.  We falsely think we can speak for God.

     But God, whether he is talking about politics, economics, religion, or inculturation, does not need us to speak for him.  He doesn't need us to give the planet purpose or meaning.  We rather need to talk less and listen more.  It's difficult to hear someone talk when we're busy spouting off.

     Use this just passed Indigenous Peoples Day to remind yourself of your so very limited view of what is real and true.

     Recently, I did a podcast about the Hebrew book of Ecclesiastes.  It had to do with how  this book represents a "new" kind of wisdom in ancient Israel.  Before Ecclesiastes appeared, most Hebrews believed this about wisdom:  if one was wise, that is, if one adhered to the dictums of the divinely instituted backbone of the creation, one would always experience success, material as well as spiritual.  Disappointment could not be.
     
     Do you believe this?  I hope not.  In response, the writer of Ecclesiastes says that life is futile, that a life well lived can amount to nothing, and that all people suffer have the same end:  death.  Moreover, the wisest person may well suffer the worst of material fates.  Wisdom is no guarantee of anything.

     Except one thing:  the value of the presence of God.  Take away God, and yes, life can nonetheless be joyful, yet as Thomas Hobbes put it, also brutish and short.  Leave God in, and yes, life is equally so:  joyous as well as brutal.
     
     But, and this is a big "but," life has a point.  Why else would so-called "New Atheist" Richard Dawkins reply, in answer to a question about the meaning of life, "That's not a valid question"?
          
     By the way, I'll be traveling for a few days, so will not be posting until later next week.  Thanks for reading!

     Think about our Jewish brothers and sisters today.  At sundown last night, Jews around the world entered into the most sacred time of their year:  the high holy days, the Days of Awe.  Beginning with Rosh Hashana (the New Year) and culminating in Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), these days give every Jew opportunity to reflect on the past and prepare for the future.  They're marked by repentance, discipline, singing, gathering, reading, and meditation, moments of intense inwardness--always in community--regarding one's relationship with his/her fellow human beings and God.



     All of us can learn from the Days of Awe.  All of us can profit from taking time to think, to really think about what and how we are doing with our life, about where we have been, spiritually, vocationally, and personally, and where we want to go, come tomorrow.  In this often shallow, media driven age, we all can benefit from setting ourselves apart to ponder deeper things, to contemplating the greater meaning and realities in which we move.



     Although we may not believe we move in a bigger picture, we fool ourselves if we think we can live meaningfully without accepting the fact of its presence.  We are born for transcendence, we are made to look beyond the immediate and present.  In these Days of Awe, our Jewish brethren remind us that we are more than material concoctions, more than nexuses of chemical exchange.  They tell us that we are creatures of this earth, yes, but simultaneously, to borrow the name of an REM song, creatures of the "Great Beyond."
     Enjoy your pondering.

     In the course of my teaching I have lately had occasion to reread Boethius's medieval classic, Consolation of Philosophy.  All in all, it's a fascinating book.  At the same time, I've been re-reading twentieth century historian Arthur Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being.  While Boethius explores and celebrates, using the figure of Philosophy (a woman), the intricacies of divine providence and human choice and eternal time, Lovejoy ponders how, in a world driven by principles of plentitude and continuity, such things can even exist.  That is, how can providence overcome the plentitude which it itself brought into being?  How can we affirm divine sovereignty while also upholding earthly inexhaustibility?
     Although I do not have any ready answers, I offer that neither position can work without the other.  If there is no God, there is no discernible future.  Yet if there is a God, the future is inexhaustible.
     Which do you prefer?