1/ One of the joys of writing is you receive instant feedback from readers and usually spark an exchange that leads to newer discoveries and some fascinating insights. I’d like to share one such exchange from an early subscriber and a real polymath. This is what he sent me:
2/ In the past we discussed drastic effects the modern nation state had on secularization of societies. I mentioned how ambiguous ancient literature was in describing time and space. It was considered less important to the story than the chronology and relationship of events.
3/ In all great epics and stories of the Prophets, it was always God who directed affairs and gave clues to current and future pathways. Sometimes the awareness of God was clear and direct; sometimes the protagonist was lost in himself and his surroundings and suffered for it.
4/ In all scenarios light was shed on the Divine plans and acted out through the limitations of man. In all scenarios we, the readers and listeners of the tales, were brought face to face with God and his creation, seeing ourselves in Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Moses, Joseph.
5/ These stories were written to transcend time and place. Today “history” plays the role of isolating time and place, creating the illusion of a linear progression that gives us an inflated perception of ourselves as the most progressive technically, intellectually and morally.
6/ It embeds the idea that we are alone in our time, that we must guide ourselves, while compelling oncoming generations to challenge the last and move ever faster into the future, in the only direction we think we are going: forward.
7/ In Hegel’s words, “Our epoch is a birth-time, a period of transition. The spirit of man has broken with the old order of things prevailing and with old ways of thinking, and is in the mind to let them all sink into the depths of the past to set about its own transformation.”
8/ Religion forces us to recognize the world for what it is, to engage only at a disinterested distance. It insists upon a Divine order. This new world implores us to live in distraction, to shuffle through thousands of images and sound bites a day as a process of self-education.
9/ We look at Brueghel’s Tower of Babel on our phone for five seconds, then slide our finger to the left and read a quote by Rumi, then look at a woman sitting on a car being promoted by Ford, then see the market’s performance. Nothing is seen in the right context.
10/ Today a man can live his entire life in complete isolation. His reality is meaningless because at once he can be in Tokyo, London, New York, in the Atlantic Ocean or even Mars. He can witness the great war and experience interpretations of the world a thousand years from now.
11/ How can a child, born in the world today and given all this to use at their discretion, become anything but a self-indulgent demi-god?
The lesson here: Do not be full of your own existence. How else will you see God, whose existence does not cease?
The lesson here: Do not be full of your own existence. How else will you see God, whose existence does not cease?
