Ready for Good

"Philosophy of religion is not philosophy of a philosophy, the philosophy of a doctrine, the interpretations of a dogma, but the philosophy of concrete events, acts, insights, of that which is immediately given with the pious man. The dogmas are merely a catalogue, an indispensable index. For religion is more than a creed or an ideology and cannot be understood when detached from actual living. It comes to light in moments in which one’s soul is shaken with unmitigated concern about the meaning of all meaning, about one’s ultimate commitment which is part of his very existence; in moments, in which all foregone conclusions, all life-stifling trivialities are suspended, in which the soul is starved for an inkling of eternal reality; in moments of discerning the indestructibly sudden within the perishably constant." 

― Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion"

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Dear Kate,

If you come to me with the bad news of your cancer, and I ask you to come for good news, you know what is at stake and so do I.

There is a compelling narrative that both you and I can be anything but disengaged with, feel indifferent about.  You know what you stand to lose, and I am ready to offer what you hope to gain.  The world as you know it, your world, is what is at stake here.  And you propose that I propose to hand it back to you intact, and maybe with a bit more--a lot more.  Losing a world and having it back, after all, is no walk in the park.  "Back to normal" will be anything but.  What more do you expect from me, in my "gospel," my "good story"?

Come to me with the news of your death?  That you can't.  The bridge has been broken (burned?), and there is no going across without some sort of "transcendence."  I can't hear you.  Last night before bed I was trying to talk to a Nova Scotia family of six, all died in a camper fire this past Sunday, and I couldn't hear a thing they said.  I kept staring at their pictures, especially the one with the mother and daughter posted online only two weeks ago on August 30.

What were you doing on August 30?  Did you take any picture of yourself and share with the world, a portal you didn't know you'll need to bridge across a mere two weeks later?

Well, the bad news is we are all dying.  So the good news, if there is any in this life, is getting increasingly and ever more rapidly smaller, less intelligible, less compelling, and finally unmeaningful.  There is no hunger a good meal can't fix; why then this constant craving?  There is a built-in disappointment to...everything.

Has your soul ever been "shaken with unmitigated concern about the meaning of all meaning"? while staring at a burning bush and seeing yourself burning with it? all foregone conclusions, all life-stifling trivialities going up in flames?

Not until then, we are not ready for the good news.

Yours, Alex