Drawing from the various media one is reminded of man’s persistent concern: Are we mortal only? It was a preoccupation with Solomon in an attempt to understand both the claims of humanism, and the claims of spiritual promise to immortality. He experimented with the natural (mortal) context, through the various suggested routes, and found, at the conclusion that all is vanity (vapor). Conclusion may be faced with bravery and acceptance, with fear and doubting, with hope and faith, and with a spate of responses physical (from raised fist to folded hands), and spiritual (from imagination that is human, to revelation that is divine).
One is intrigued by the experiences of persons who seek their immortality (meaning) in physical prowess. As I write this, a long time prisoner has been found to be innocent of a crime, but he needed something to restore himself in freedom. Although middle-aged, he worked and qualified as a fighter, and the other day, beat up a man in the ring to become champion of the world. One could see on his face that he had a spiritual (ecstatic) experience, as he perceived the genre. He saw himself as launching a new life, and will not fight again. He had finally beaten down his lost years. In the deaths of the first persons who launched an organized assault on Mt. Everest in 1924, an effort to fulfill some inner longing, there was an outpouring of pride and honor led by King George V of England, and noted around the world. Of the epitaph, a monk in Tibet said: I feel great compassion for them to suffer so much for such meaningless work. The monk’s response, so different from some of the western world, deserves serious thought, and further response.
Thoughts, cast in language we can understand, relative to mortality and immortality are arresting, and demand a verdict from responsible mortals. Books by thoughtful thinkers and writers on the subject abound. Even more deal with silent, but implied implications, of human tensions related to some certainties. Death is a certainty that screams at man. Is there meaning? A reviewer, evaluating a book made the observation about the main character (and perhaps a hint about the author of the book), observes that the story: . . . points a hard finger at the subconscious attempt to evade death and tragedy through mediocrity. The sense of an ending – of mortality – is never confronted . . . but it looms oppressively in our minds. We little realize that excuses for the avoidance of God, such as: his diminution, in words of some; or his relegation to fantasy for others; or laziness in many persons seeking any truth outside of nature – is that we may feel we are too ordinary for so great a matter to be assigned to faith. It implies that mankind is sufficiently unimportant that if there is God, he doesn’t care about the ant-hill, earth. I have just read an article on the secular biologist, O. W. Wilson, who has dedicated himself during his professional life to the study of ants and their culture. I do not doubt that the study has some meaning. Solomon said it does. My concern to the point of sorrow is touched by the work that ends in nature. The hope offered by Jesus Christ is that a person can begin, in nature, a work that will never end, and a life of immortal meaning. The gap in contexts for the person of nature, and the nature person of faith in God sometimes seems close, in some factors. In other factors, the two seem so far apart that a searcher seems to be functioning in one universe and the colleague in another very far away. Faith bridges the natural to that which is beyond it.
There is a vital point here. What is the best situation to assure everyone that the important matters have been addressed, and that we are doing what ought to be done with our lives? The high-value oriented humanist wants to have a better world for children, and onward to ensuing generations. The person of faith includes that, and marches in the same group that wants to give back to ongoing society. What follows? Is that all there is? Whatever is of God is not fanciful. His special given life never ends. What if he did create, either through word fiat, or through a process of millions of years? Time means nothing to him. My entire adult life has been committed to doing what thinking adults, centering on persons, are supposed to do to advance the generations, but the most important, absolutely vital for me, is to believe in God and his plan in redemption. One finds it in his order for us. We need the basic message of Scripture so to know what we believe and not believe about meaning related to God and self. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020