BlogEthics: Why Things Will Get Worse, Then Better

   History imitates itself.

   History imitates itself because humans make history. What happens to humans makes history. A man eating a bear is not news. A bear eating a man is not only news, it is tragedy. This is true even though there are many more men than bears.

   Basic human need drives history. Trapped in mammalian form, man must eat every day, drink copious amounts of water and, virtually hairless, shelter himself from heat and cold. Until human need changes, or humanity disappears, history will replicate itself .

  Humanity teeters ever on the brink of destruction. Conception among humans depends on access, desire, nutrition and willingness (or force). Even after conception, a nine month gestation produces only the most fragile of beings, with a long, helpless infancy before it. The clan (family, social group, significant others) must nourish and protect the child.

   Human nature intrudes on need. The human response to stimuli, at once self-effacing and self-empowering, malicious and charitable, writes history as well. Humanity invents words like generosity, kindness and nurture to describe both what it sees and what it hopes to be. The other words, vindictiveness, hatred and greed, seem as often to appear sans vocare. 

   Reliance on humanity as revealed by acquisitive nature is limited at best. Jefferson could write of the "certain inalienable rights" and Lincoln would appeal to the "better angels of our nature." Still, greed pushes man when he leaves the womb and harder when he exits the cave. Curious men climb the mountain. The same men erode its surface to make a path. One obtains the crest by exertion. He invites his fellows to follow more easily, for a price.

   One day, some day, man will learn to live with one another as lovers, rather than seek to rule over one another like lords. God speed the day.

   We are more likely to see the Day of Love as we work out our understanding of the Sacred. The earth, for instance is not sacred itself. In fact, it is as sin stained as the inner man and perhaps more intent on its own salvation. The earth is perishing, perishes now, will finally perish in complete redemption. Christian environmentalism mars itself when it speaks of the holy earth. God is holy. God's people God enjoins to be holy as God is holy. The earth is renewable by act of God.

   That is, God is unavailable in Creation, though visible in works. Creation (Nature, the ecology, the planet) will be renewed in God. Prayer is as important as recycling, if God is and cares.

   Tell the name in God's belly. Men think we know. The name is some variant of Power, Awe, Authority. Men would be better men, one thinks, if they could get better gods. The search for the Name God Keeps Hidden presupposes god is transformed by association with man. The Biblical idea seems to be that God transforms man when man associates with God.

   Too much to read? Take the weekend off. Happy fourth.

  

  

  

  

  

  

Comments

[RobeFRe]

Rick said,

'God's people God enjoins to be holy as God is holy.'

So now, or is it then, I wonder, and I would say, 'to myself', yet I posit it here,

What does Holy look like?

RobertRe

Nine fruitful explosions, I says, almost to myself.