THE POINT ABOUT US

WHAT IS THE POINT ABOUT US?

Perhaps the most perplexing questions we are faced with concerns who we are and discerning the purpose of our lives on this speck of dust floating through the vastness of the universe.  

 What about us?  Why are we here at all?  What's the point of our being?

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We cannot give a definitive answer as to why we exist any easier than we can answer questions regarding the existence of God.  In the  unanswerability of such questions, however, is the connection between God and us.  As such, the history of our being is the history of God's being.  

That may sound as if we humans invented God, but that would be missing the point entirely because there is a point at which our ontological questions have no point, where the question as to our existence simple becomes  the question of "What is the point of us?

This interconnectivity between the existence of God and we humans is referenced in the Psalms, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?"  (Psalm 6:5) and "Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?or thy faithfulness in destruction?" (Psalm 88:11).   The point of these questions is to posit the question, "If we don't exist, does it matter if God exists?"  

I am sure this is an uncomfortable question to many religious people because the answer is clearly "No."   It doesn't matter.   If we don't exist, then God or a creative force by some other name does not matter as the Psalmists clearly points out.  So the point of our existence is, in part, to proclaim the existence of God and places some importance on our being.  Our being is the proof of a creative force unimaginably bigger than the sum of us or the sum of an ever expanding creation

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The only way religion has been able to express this truth is through its mythic imagination telling our story with God from an imaginative outside perspective. This imaginative perspective is not make-believe, but rather a perspective garnered from our collective life experiences within the world of our making which extend back to our prehistory that prompted our ancestors to find meaning and purpose in them in order to orient ourselves to world in which we live.  Without these stories we have difficulty understanding who we are and why we do the things we do.  They help explain our experiences to this day. 

Cast in theism these mythic stories tells us that the life we experience is the life that proceeds from God's kenotic creativity; of God expending self to expand SELF.  While God is unlike us, we are connected to God by and through God's kenotic creativity; God's desire to be and, in particular,  God's desire to be known.  In most religions this desire to be known is associated with the human emotion of  love.  

For example, "God is love," is Christianity 's  fundamental creed.  To feel unloved, is to feel a profound absence, a hole in one's being that will seek something to fill its void.  The absence of love in one's life is the loss of connection with God who nevertheless continues to love the one feeling unloved because we are of God and God is love.

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The truth is we matter to God, regardless of who one is, what one does, or what one fails to do.   This  truth is something that transcends our sense of justice within the world of our making.  There are times that I feel we, as a whole, are striving to value every human being's worth as something we humans can accomplish on our own.   Seeking to value every human being and every form of life we encounter  is not a "Christian" endeavor but rather a human endeavor that is present in almost every religious and non-religious ideology.  It hearkens back to what I have written earlier blogs on the primary impulse of religion (of bringing us together in shared beliefs) is the fundamental realization that we need each other.  

In the world of our making, however, the ability to differentiate has caused us to see the most subtle nuances in an other as a barrier to this value of every living thing.  This is particularly challenging in the differences we see in our fellow human beings.  In Abrahamic monotheism,  this nuance is captured in the mythic story of Adam and Eve, our first parents who differentiate themselves based on sexual appearances.  

In my reading of this story, I do not find a "fall" from God's grace but rather a fuller engagement with it.  Gifted with the ability to choose, we opted to know good and evil like God,  Since we cannot know as God knows, we were summarily tasked in our dualistic understanding of good and evil to  make a world of our own amidst the diverse world of God's creating.  Our story from that moment onward is a story of dealing with the paradox of God's being and God's creation.  

Where we see dark and light, good and evil, God only sees light and the goodness of the creation God loves.  Where we see difference, God sees none.   Difference makes no difference in the light and love of God.  What we perceive as paradox in the world of our making is the sign of God's presence in it; that Oneness and Singularity from which all things proceed and dwell in.  

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Ours is a struggle with the temporality of our existence and the limitations which hinder our ability to experience the ultimate fulfillment of what we seek in our creative endeavors.  Nothing symbolizes this than the monumental structures we leave behind us to serve as a reminder to those who follow us that we made a difference in the world of our making and that they stand upon our shoulders and, at the very least, owe us recognition.  We are haunted by our perceptions; that whatever knowledge we possess will never be enough; that our ending will be much as our beginning, an emergence into the nothingness from which we were born.  

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The point of our being is to be alive; to give, in the short span of our existence, acknowledgment of the God we seek to know in full.   God's delight in us is never-ending even though we cannot comprehend it or understand the paradoxical love of God.  The point of our existence is to engage the love that brought us into being; to be that love in the world of our making; to love ourselves, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and, paradoxically, love that which we find unlovable, our enemies. 

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The point about us is that we matter to God, otherwise we would not be here.  God needs us to need God; to give recognition to the giver of life whose desire to be is expressed in our being.  Understanding our being is central to understanding God's being.  

We are not God, yet God shines through us.  God is evident in us as we are contained in and sustained through the being of God.  We proceeded from God's kenotic desire to be; to expend self to expand SELF.  We are, in part, that SELF of God expressed in and throughout the entirety of God's creation.  

In the shortness of our life-span, we give evidence of the plentitude of God's creating grace.  At the end of this transitory life, one can only hope that the life force of one's life, the totality of one's soulfulness returns the one who made us living souls.  We were made of love, made to love, and it is hoped that this love will return to LOVE, to God.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm