What is written here relates to the emphasis of the theme of the ordinary for this date in what has preceded and will follow in these Pages. That emphasis should gain considerable attention in our discussion about mortal life and spiritual meaning. Currently (2014) there are several writers trying to revive an interest in the glory of the ordinary. The concept has long been a part of me in sheer glory of life, in both human (reflective) life and divine (spiritual). I resonate with Albert Schweitzer’s concept on reverence for life, while also having difficulty with some of his theology. So great has it been that I have believed that reality of life (mortality) is a gift of God so to provide evidence of God. If so we are brought at least into the margins of sublimity related to God and the promise of immortality. Mortality, known consciously only to human beings, must precede immortality. Studies of space leave the investigators in a bit of a quandary. After all human beings have done in the exploration of space and planets, why have we found no life? The slightest evidence that there may have been water on a planet is taken as indication there may have been life. A planet depression in a desert raises hope there may have been a rivulet. It is presumed we can’t have life without water. The attempts to communicate with other living beings in space have met with silence or odd sounds that could come from space/objects explosions. That there is no life found is exasperating, so presenting a gap in concepts of the emerging universe – that if life appeared on a minor (relative to size) planet among many planets through the forces of evolutionary development, there must be life elsewhere. It is assumed that such life would be advanced from ours so to understand ours better but leaving us second in the chain. Science does not interpret available evidence that there is other intelligent life perhaps divine.
The history of the world has been an abiding interest for me, and was my minor emphasis on both the undergraduate and graduate programs in formal education. Quite significant in that field is biography, a source of evidence for interpretation of history. We are not well schooled in the influence and extent of the influence of the masses on history, so we tend to follow leaders to gain some perspective on the real story of history. Even then, there are many leaders affecting significant change, persons about whom vast populations have never identified. Ask even history majors to identify Marin Mersenne and they are reticent to respond. Mersenne (1588-1648) entered the Minim Monastery to follow very strict practices of Franciscans – in the rule of humility, penance and poverty. He remained there until his death. He determined to advance science believing it confirmed religious truths. He addressed the problems of the transition from old beliefs to new by bringing some of the best intellectuals together for cooperative work. He worked rather closely with Gassendi (friend of both Galileo and Kepler); with Descartes (both father and son); and with Pascal (who first met Descartes in Mersenne’s little cell). Mersenne sent letters to intellectuals everywhere seeking scientific advance. By his winning ways, he drew far-separated thinkers into a net of correspondence that advanced the Renaissance significantly. (Note: Boorstin, The Discoverers, 386-7)
Many persons turn ordinary life into meaningful sublimity doing what they believe is life duty to them, and likely to most persons around them. Most sublimity in life is private and personal. Much of the human generation of momentary sublimity in the acclaims of audiences is passé. The applause dies quickly into a faint echo. Scripture often calls readers to sublimity that has an abiding affect that matures peace and serenity to the human spirit. We may be so earth-bound that we miss the ultimate experience of our humanity drawing upon immortal life during the mortal. Isaiah refers to God’s splendor gift to us. Glory is the more common term used in Scripture. Moses desiring to see God was permitted to see the hinder parts as the King James Version expresses it – the glory that follows in the wake of God. Most of the persons I meet seem not open to experience (feeling) the sublime. They may touch on the border of it in a piece of music, or beauty in nature (including a newborn infant), or an experience of love, but to rise to the level of the sublime and stay there for a while may never enter their minds. It is possible to experience glory, the constancy of God generated not by hallucination but by righteous devotional habit. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020