Luckily, as humans living together in the same world, there is an abundant overlap in our individual experiences, and we possess the ability to communicate, mainly through words. Through words we are able to extrapolate our own individual contexts in order to relate with others' experiences. Words are a very diverse instrument. They also give us the ability to justify anything. Maybe it's the validation we receive from mutuality, maybe it's capacity for education, maybe it's the inherent imperfection--maybe the sum--and it equals an egocentric human population. And lots of words.
I've been reading C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces intermittently over the past couple months and finally finished a few days ago. It follows the story of a girl as she becomes queen but who is plagued by misery throughout her life and carries her complaint against the gods with her. Near the end of the story, she stands before the gods and, at last, voices her complaint—which is also her answer. She states, “I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” The last paragraph reads, "I ended my first book with the words 'no answer'. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words." (Lewis, 308).
It's interesting because it alludes to the idea of the External—something outside of our seeing/breathing/thinking context. Whatever part of the External that does leak into our finite human context can only be understood here, in our place—regardless of the original context.
In my opinion, this is where religion is born. A bit of the External leaking into all of our diverse little human contexts. It's the context we understand. And it's hard for me to understand why many human social circles are so adamant about propagating their own context as truth. They treat God as though He is trapped in a book or—even more absurdly—a human context of their choosing.
I miss mountains. Cities are impressive and amazing, but the structure concept goes too far. It pervades mindsets to the point where people get perturbed by seeing even a slightly abnormal facial expression in public. Mountains are rugged and completely void of human invention. I think it points to the External—Something completely outside of human invention or planning.
There are some brilliant things about life. But, often, I am overcome with the realization that something doesn't add up. As the greatest actor of all time (Nicolas Cage, of course) said once while he was acting, "They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'” (Lord of War). In many ways I understand being mad at God for (seemingly) allowing evil to prevail. That is a spot I walk through often.
Dr. Paul Farmer helps poor people in Haiti. Sometimes he also does stuff like teach at Harvard Medical School and work as an attending physician at Brigham Woman's Hospital in Boston. He said, "The fact that any sort of religious faith was so disdained at Harvard and so important to the poor—not just in Haiti but elsewhere, too—made me even more convinced that faith must be something good." In the end, I find myself back at the place where I simply hope that Someone is keeping score.
Much seems lost. Does perfection lie Outside? Because it definitely doesn't make a name for itself in this human context. Yet enough fragments are left flowing through our veins to evoke longing for that place. Fragments of all different shapes—friendship, laughter, love, peace—nurturing the hope that Beauty is out there, somewhere, past where words can go.
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