To a Certain No-you Place

 

這是最後一夜了　面對面
坐著沒有終站的火車
明天要飛去　飛去
沒有你的地方　沒有你的地方

Here's the last night, face to face

Riding a railway going nowhere

Tomorrow I will fly, fly away

To a certain no-you place, no-you place

*************

Dear Kate,

Bear with me.  This piece is going to be top-heavy.  But the weekend is nigh.

There are really two sorts of secularists (excuse my simplification for a moment)--alike in shunning any assent to the transcendence: meaning, in this life as we live it, WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get), the only realities we can know for sure are the worldly realities as we could humanly perceive and agree on--yet only one sort of secularism is legitimate.

The division is in their attitude towards transcendence: one assumes there is none, the other can't say for sure.  The former kind is called radical secularists, people who claim to know for certain there is nothing beyond the ordinary limits of the finite, direct human apprehension, and naturally propose a rejection of any religious consideration.  The latter is called agnostic secularists, those who, in my opinion, gain legitimacy in their belief by acknowledging human's epistemological condition that we don't know what we don't know.  One belief system is closed and the other open, to transcendence and, hence, the many possibilities of life.

Phew, that was dry!  Let's consider an example, a very immanent one: the pandemic we are still in right now.  How is one to make sense of it?  Not only the result of it but the mere existence of it?  If we are so ready to offer our Why(s) about the pandemic, are we also just as rigorous in our search for its Why-not(s)?  To come up with a vaccine is to immune ourselves--now and tomorrow and finally--against what?  To get back to "normal" is to write the next chapter, a sequel, our rendition--but to what?

A person who believes there is absolutely nothing beyond our finite realities (according to our state-of-the-art knowledge) would answer these questions very differently than someone who acknowledges there are rhymes and (un)reasons not only beyond our awareness, but, more importantly, our ambitions/biases and smallness/selfishness.

But I am not a secularist: I am not going to reflect on someone else's belief, on their behalf.  I am a Christian, and will now address Christians in the reverse order of the above oversimplification.

There too are two sorts of Christians, those who claim to subscribe to the transcendence but are really agnostics: can't say for sure, can't say enough, pretty much can't say anything about God without turning on their religious mode---which is the Dumb Mode, reserved for the appearance of Santa Claus, Mr/Ms Right, Baby-in-a-Manger and other mythological figures of sentimental but anti-intellectual significance.  They don't talk about anything "transcendent" at school or at work or on vacation, and in fact live day-to-day usually rather joylessly and hopelessly (two of the most indicative tell-tale signs), hopping from one (version of) "reality" to another, like everyone else is (and should, they insist).  What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get, curves and distance and dollar signs.  When they get around to talk about ("their") God, the audience cringes, and they themselves too would if only a bit of honesty and embarrassment is allowed.  Educated agnostic Christians delight in their expertise to prescribe learned solutions to the world's problems, their God only a last reluctant resort to fill in the gaps.

And then there are "radical" Christians who explore and play in God's garden, walk and talk with the Gardener, wonder aloud about everything, taking for granted none, the most inquisitive scientists, honorable businessperson and creatives artists, aiming always at heaven and getting the earth thrown in: the children.  "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."  Never, consider that.  We will need a heavy dose of toxic theology to contaminate such wonderful news.

The song above, the line about "flying away to a certain no-you place," kills me every time.  Whoever wrote this line, sang this song might be an eminent geographer, but to her, at that moment, the world's geography was neatly divided into two places: one where her lover was, and every place else.  Landmass and ocean, realities as they were and will likely always be mattered none to her, because her train was moving towards "nowhere."  Everywhere without her lover was nowhere.

And that's the Genesis story.

Yours, Alex