Thursday: Day Eleven
News online this morning that temperatures in some neighborhoods of India are nearing 122°F where continued human life is not feasible. I wonder if it's the latest sign of the already in-progress next mass extinction event, Earth becoming too hot for most life to survive?
Or will the religious and political certainties that divide human beings get us first and cause us to wipe out other life along with ourselves? In our extreme naiveté, entrenched as we are in our hatreds of each other here on Earth, we do consider ourselves most important in this Universe of, a current estimate is 200,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies.
Thomas Hardy's poetry keeps sneaking back into my consciousness:
God-Forgotten by Thomas Hardy
I towered far, and lo! I stood within
The presence of the Lord Most High,
Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win
Some answer to their cry.
--"The Earth, say'st thou? The Human race?
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not." -
--"O Lord, forgive me when I say
Thou spak'st the word, and mad'st it all." -
"The Earth of men--let me bethink me . . . Yea!
I dimly do recall
"Some tiny sphere I built long back
(Mid millions of such shapes of mine)
So named . . . It perished, surely--not a wrack
Remaining, or a sign?
"It lost my interest from the first,
My aims therefor succeeding ill;
Haply it died of doing as it durst?" -
"Lord, it existeth still." -
"Dark, then, its life! For not a cry
Of aught it bears do I now hear;
Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby
Its plaints had reached mine ear.
"It used to ask for gifts of good,
Till came its severance self-entailed,
When sudden silence on that side ensued,
And has till now prevailed.
"All other orbs have kept in touch;
Their voicings reach me speedily:
Thy people took upon them overmuch
In sundering them from me!
"And it is strange--though sad enough -
Earth's race should think that one whose call
Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff
Must heed their tainted ball! . . .
"But say'st thou 'tis by pangs distraught,
And strife, and silent suffering? -
Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought
Even on so poor a thing!
"Thou should'st have learnt that Not to Mend
For Me could mean but Not to Know:
Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end
To what men undergo." . . .
Homing at dawn, I thought to see
One of the Messengers standing by.
- Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me
When trouble hovers nigh.
An interest in my new retirement continues to be personal Bible study, fascination with what we have and what to make of it. Not yet studying Revelation prep to meeting with Dr Dan's Sunday school class in the fall, a current focus is the so-called creation stories in Genesis. Specifically, the notion that the seven day story at Genesis 1:1-2:4a is not at all meant to be a story of creation ex-nihilo, but an account of God, having created the Universe, now turning to look at the chaos that is Earth; the spirit, breath, wind of God moving over Earth's surface, and God speaking (logos, Word) order into the chaos; and here we are!
A second phase of my contemplation focuses on our notion that we are what God is like, that God must be like us, meaning we reflect God's likeness, are in God's image, except that God is omnipotent, omniscient, full of Grace (which means all lovingkindness). Which theology, the theodicy question, runs up against our experience of life and Time.
Nothing unique or profound, countless numbers of humans have done these contemplations before me; and I find it a worthwhile project at this Time, in my extreme old age. Somewhere in a next phase or step comes pondering what comes next, wrestling with my sense of already having been there that Monday morning, January 24, 2011 under deep anesthesia, a place of no awareness, nor of dreams, nor even of darkness.
If me, why not all sentient creatures? What might a porpoise's vision of Heaven look like? Or a pig's? Or any living thing, a dog's?
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And over against our Christian affection for streets of gold, the Jewish notion that we live on in the memories of others. Or, as Freddy Buechner put it:
WHEN YOU REMEMBER ME, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghostlike, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.
-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words