Greetings,
Maria Boulding spent 62 of her 80 years as a much-valued member of Stanbrook Abbey, a community of enclosed Benedictine nuns. Her realisation, early in her monastic life, that she had a gift for theology and for writing brought her into contact with leading theologians and prelates. She translated St Augustine's Confessions (1997) and his Expositions of the Psalms in several volumes (2000-2004), to much acclaim. The following is from her book The Coming of God, written in 1982, as the Cold War was still in progress and the fear of nuclear weapons was very real.
Today the Cold War is over, but wars and rumors of war continue to be very real. Even as we theorically wind down the war in Iraq (though it is not really over for the Iraqis or even for us), the conflicts of our human life contine to be real, the threat of nuclear weapons, whether in the hands of governments or terrorists continues to be real, and the destruction of our planet’s resources is very real. Consider this:
The New Testament hope that Christ will come again is in some way earthed in our own expectations, fears and desires. If modern men and women are to be more than simply agnostic about the long-term prospects for our race, their most fundamental hope must be that it will not end in meaningless destruction. If we are going to blow ourselves out of existence as though we had never been, or make our planet uninhabitable without finding alternative accommodation, there is little point in hoping for anything else. To believe that the human race will eventually reach the end of its earthly pilgrimage is one thing; to equate the end with total, blind destruction is another. It is sad that the latter prospect is what many moderns term “apocalyptic,” if they use the word at all.
The hope that we are traveling towards a destiny, rather than a mere collapse is linked with the faith that our origins were already purposeful. If we think that our existence is a mere fluke, the result of some improbable mix in some primal soup that threw up the conditions required to sustain life, then our whole human story is a chance bubble; it has no purpose and can be pricked as meaninglessly as it was formed. But if there is a Creator who stands outside the whole cosmic evolutionary process, and yet works his will within it by a wisdom and love that are present in its every tiniest movement, then human life has a purpose. It begins from God and is on its way to a goal which, however unimaginable, will give meaning to the whole adventure.
We cannot comfort ourselves with wishful thinking. We instinctively admire the courage of those who squarely face the possibility that human life is simply absurd, that there is no future and kindness as we wait for our meaningless extinction. Courageous as it is, however, this view is not convincing, for it leaves too much unexplained. Deeply rooted in our experience is an obstinate certainty that our best intuitions will prove to have been the truest, and no mockery. We also want justice, however we may fear it or fall short in practicing it ourselves. Our hearts demand that the very rough and uneven scheme of distribution in this life shall be redeemed within a larger justice.
No dues ex machine solution will satisfy our deepest desires; we could not rest content with an end which was mere comforting, the awakening from a bad dream to find that all the evil has been unreal after all. We know that if our instinct for truth is to be trusted, the whole sin of the world in which we are all accomplices must be taken with absolute, ultimate seriousness, and shown up for what it is in the light of God’s holiness. Only so will our own responsibility and freedom be respected.
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
We did need, we do need, and we will need the Advent, the Coming of God in our lives, and in our society, and in our world.
Yours & His,
DED
No comments:
Post a Comment