again, he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
"Today if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts."
a new day. new. except much--nearly all--has been accomplished already. so begins today with news already flashing before my eyes, with music on the radio--news of what's happened, what's been felt, what the world beyond my mind has conceived and brought forth already. familiar sunlight grazes my eyes with gentle strokes through dusty slits of window-blinds as it did yesterday and before. nothing new. much is past, and today, under the same sun, i am getting ready to start anew.
'The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.' such is our existence in a way, but not necessarily so abysmal. our finitude amplifies, perhaps, the sense of something bigger than ourselves. and ‘common sense’ tells me otherwise, if i have any theory of mind, that there is plenty beyond what i can see, beyond my own musing--in the faces of the others whom i pass by in the streets, in the encounters we share with one another. that indeed is something ‘common,’ something we share. perhaps even something new.
that which is not visible to us is not necessarily darkness. many believe, as many have believed as common belief, in an interpreter. and darkness is not so dark to him. maybe such distrust toward what we cannot see for ourselves is why we are so uncomfortable with matters of faith. as if reality exists only beneath a microscope or within a 95% confidence interval. we are defined by more than our self-awareness, and if we have any sense in common it is that there is much more than our self. and everything except myself is what has been for ages. perhaps that’s news to all of us each day as we awaken from our dreams.
when we give the past a name we call it history. a narrative that has been on-going, much taking place in darkened space and time unknown to us. the weight of this story and its meaning is the labor of those in that darkened past, who shine in that darkness even in our memory today. we, as fruits of their labor and love, are lights as well, as long as we are responsive to them. and somehow our responsibility seems more than our own initiative or choice, though embracing this responsibility leads ironically to a greater freedom, a more beautiful notion of ourselves, and joy that is shared in common with everything else in existence.
as i look to the darkness ahead, i feel as though i must say something new, something different and revolutionary, as if i would matter less otherwise. but i know that freedom rests in knowing that i am loved. even from my parents i learned at a young age that i can be no more lovable than i was as a squirmy infant with soiled diapers. there is little i can do to make them love me more or less. in such steadfast love i choose to abide and to make myself at home, even at rest. this i want to remember today--this love, so common and agreeable and new every morning, as if to make all things new.
notes:
-‘again, he appoints . . .’: Hebrews 4:7. the context of the verse has to do with rest. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/hebrew+4%3A7/
-‘familiar sunlight’: my way of evoking ‘nothing new under the sun.’ Ecclesiastes 1:2-11. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/Ecclesiastes%201%3A9/
-‘The cradle rocks . . .’: aside from evoking Van Halen’s ‘And The Cradle Will Rock’ (not really), this is a quotation from the Nabakov’s autobiography Speak, Memory. He’s a writer I admire for his lyrical style. Some of the sexist writing I know of. This sentence begins his book.
-‘theory of mind’: term in Psychology referring to one’s being aware that other people have thoughts of their own and may be thinking something else than what’s apparent.
-‘something new . . .’: hopefully the repetition is enough to evoke thoughts about ‘newness’ and the ‘news,’ and even ‘gospel.’ there is news that is casual and merely information, and there is news that demands response (kind of like news of tsunamis in Japan) as well as news that demands daily response and reminder, which ends up being one’s devotion and faith in practice. but even if i’m not religious, it does take quite a bit of ‘devotion’ to remind myself that there are other people in the world, all with different thoughts, and so forth.
-‘darkness is not dark to him.’: Psalm 139:12. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/Psalm%20139%3A12/
-‘what we can see for ourselves’: although here i am making a case for the importance of faith in life, i do believe that all things anchor and have a very strong relationship with the physical. i want to advocate for science as much as for spirituality because i am grieved at how poorly they communicate and how little they understand each other. there is a somewhat of a cliche quote from Einstein that says something to the effect of ‘faith guides science, and science without faith is dead/meaningless.’ i find that this is very much true, and that both cannot function without the other. furthermore, i find that separating the spiritual from the physical is at the root of many heresies including gnosticism, cartesian dualism (i consider this heretical because it annoys me--more as a child neurologist than an amateur theologian), and any belief that separates the deity of Christ from His humanity.
-’95% confidence interval’: arbitrary cut-off used in science, tells us that the discrete results of an experiment falls within this interval 95% of the time if reproduced over and over.
-‘history’: i find sticking to history and facts vital to talking any meaning into things. in fact, Christianity’s claims are historical more than anything else like ‘it’s a good idea to be nice to other people because we intuitively accept this.’
-‘lights’: somewhat not all spelled out by me, maybe kinda cheesy. the point is that whatever darkness in the past is illuminated by something, and in our present perspective, it’s undeniable that some sort of light does shine in the darkness, though we may not understand it. John 1:1-4. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/john+1/
-’so common and agreeable’: this is what ‘Amen’ means, i think.
-‘new every morning’: Lamentation 3:22-23. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/Lamentations%203%3A23/
-‘all things new’: Revelation 21:5. see: http://www.esvonline.org/search/Revelation%2021%3A5/
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