In an interview, the international gallerist, Gian Enzo Sperone, stated: I’m still trying to understand who I am . . . When you’re at my age, you are confused by paradox. Art is a mystery and life is more mysterious than that. Carl Andre used to say: A man climbs a mountain because it’s there. A man makes art because it isn’t there. For many persons, the Sperone statement makes sense, for many others it does not. I would not want to attach too greatly self-analysis to the paradox/contradiction conceptualizations. What is paradox for one is contradiction for another. It is something like my parental home during my teen years. One might enter by the front door to the hall and a winding staircase, or the side door to the kitchen, or the back door to the back stairs, or the north door to the basement area with short steps to one side of the kitchen. One would interpret the house, even the family, somewhat differently inside each entrance. It is the old story of the blindfolded person asked to describe the elephant after touching the animal’s trunk, ear and tail. The answers vary – like a tree, like a leaf, like a rope. Scripture acknowledges as much when the reader is informed that we look through a glass darkly, but at least we see. Life tenure, as difficult and complex as it is, need not be made more difficult through our circumlocutions. We can know the essentials to get us through with peace and hope, with meaning immortal. We need to go through the doors of humility and pride, of physical and spiritual growth, of learning and ignorance, of faith and unbelief, of mortality and death. These incorporate meaning about who we are becoming, under God.
There are two kingdoms. Mankind’s is of the earth. We tend to think of God’s kingdom, if we think of God’s kingdom, as that of heaven. So we set up a contradiction, unless we believe in both at the same time, which is paradox. The kingdom of God is one, and that includes all that is lasting. In the final formation they seem to be separate, and in some ways they are, but in the finished state there is only the kingdom of God. To complete the picture, according to Scripture, there will be a new heaven and a new earth – one. In this there will be no paradox, no contradiction. Both inspired Scripture and careful philosophers of all that is, find the total to be the same – divine mystery. We can get on with the benefits of Scripture, prayer and faith. We might say that these factors cover unknowns of whatever are the unifying factors of all life and consciousness, but this is not ignorance. It is, at the end, the belief that God, who can deal with it all, knows the mystery. To him there is no stoppage in mystery. He has it solved. There is effective faith. So we move on, with the satisfaction that we are the children of God. So I may know who I am. My children did not know who I am in the large human situation, until they were adults. As children of God, we will not know until we are included by the Father as his mature children. Then we shall be known as we are known. Whatever the response to this scenario, it is to the mass of persons through the centuries of mankind’s existence. We read the ancients who confronted issues by making up specialized gods. The Apostle Paul, Augustine, Luther knew who they were, and who God is. The mysteries are partly solved, enough so for peace, and the inclusion of continuing mystery in the scenario – in faith acceptance.
It is folly to make more of natural circumstances than God makes of them. With the humility of repentance, with the grace of God, with the guidance of Scripture, with the patience of Holy Spirit, with the faith of hope in Christ – mankind has all that is needed to get through, not somehow but triumphantly. On this trail there is love, hope, peace, joy, safety, wisdom and immortality. We live, for a lifetime, in a world that is conflicted over salvation and depravity (lostness), over sin and righteousness, over truth and fiction, over integrity and deceit. The thoroughly furnished Christian is at peace. Full answers can’t be provided by mankind. Each new discovery opens up new vistas for search that are greater than the illumination that uncovered the new area to explore. We may continue the overload of the human being, a tendency of our activity. That overload may distort us. There is a feeling we are not now what we were in a time of accepted earth mystery. Mankind, without faith in God that includes his care and concern for human objectives will increasingly turn to methods by which to escape the unmanageable mass. Some analysts believe that change has already occurred, and needs to be juggled in some way. Our best oriented persons in the realm of nature offer no satisfactory conclusions for us. In Christ, God does. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020