It is not easy to be speaking about hope today. 49 people murdered and 20 seriously injured after two mosque shootings in Christchurch New Zealand - of all places. When that is the first news you hear on switching on your radio it casts a shadow on the day. It also raises awareness of other atrocities going on across the globe which have dropped out of the news and are not receiving as much attention. Humankind’s capacity for evil is powerful. Sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists will continue to explore and seek to explain and it is right that they do so. Eventually, however, they must come up against the unwelcome truth that humankind is a fallen species with a tendency to do the wrong thing, even to choose evil, and is in need of an influence outside itself to redeem and renew.
It is no wonder that much contemporary fiction and cinema looks to the future with foreboding and dread. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road sees a future where ecological disaster has rendered the civilised world barren and devoid of any technological comfort blanket. Communities are fractured and people prey on one another in order to survive. The worst of times does not bring out the best in people. It’s one of those books I am glad to have read. I admire McCarthy. But I would find it hard to read that book again.
Years ago a friend asked me if there were any contemporary authors who could be described as ‘optimistic’. At that time, the late seventies, Saul Bellow was deemed to have a sunnier outlook than many but I really had to think about that. Most of what was popular at the time seemed to reflect Henry David Thoreau’s view that ‘the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’ Not that I think we should distance ourselves from that. That is a reflection of humankind without God and it is good to be in touch with it. It is where we begin with humankind. Alone without God and without hope.
Now and again there are glimmers. It’s a while since I read Douglas Coupland’s Life After God but I remember the final impact very well. Throughout the book he teases the reader that he has a secret which he will share in due course. In the second last page he comes out with it:
‘Now - here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love as I seem beyond being able to love.’
I am not sure where this has led Douglas Coupland but it is significant that a life lived in ‘quiet desperation’ is looking beyond itself for fulfilment.
One of the blessings of this present time for me personally is that I still have concentration to read. As the day goes on things become a bit more difficult as the various medications kick in but it’s been good to catch up with some of the ‘trending’ stuff. The History Of Bees by the Norwegian author Maja Lunde is one for your list. It is a novel that works on three different time lines in three different places: England 1851, United States 2007 and China 2098. It can be read as three stories about families. Parents expectations clash with children’s aspirations or lack of them, the effects of unforeseen disasters, the pain of lost dreams. Bees are the big unifying theme and how three families were dependent on them for wellbeing and indeed survival. The China sequences give a horrifying picture of a world without bees and the steps that have to be taken to artificially pollinate fruit trees and crops.
The three families live painful and apparently insignificant lives but in the end it is shown that they are part of a movement of connecting circumstances spanning the centuries that lead to an immense good for the whole planet. In my experience it’s not often you get this kind of Big Story ( ‘metanarrative’ in today’s jargon) in modern fiction. God is not explicitly mentioned except in a narrow, restrictive way in the England 1851 sequences but the vision of human history carrying a purpose which individual people may be unaware of but to which they contribute fits very well into a Christian perspective. Paul speaks of life being like puzzling reflections in a mirror but the time will come when all will be made plain. I love the idea of the small people in the story in their painful lives being made aware in the end of their contribution to an immense good.
This is not to diminish the importance of recognizing the brutalizing effects of life for so many people and I have always distanced myself from the response of ‘pie in the sky when you die.’ But as we engage with the shadows that fall on human experience we also point to the light that is promised with the onward movement of our God, surging towards the New Heaven and the New Earth. We are part of His Story.
The Norwegian monk Eric Varden shares his spiritual journey in The Shattering Of Loneliness. It is a quirky story in which many elements played a part to bring him to Christ. One was listening to the music of Gustave Mahler:
‘I was alert to a palpable communion with mankind, which I saw before me as a suffering mass overshadowed by death. Not to avert my gaze was a duty, I was sure: I had to have decency to see. But a voice said within me: ‘not in vain’. Mahler let me sense that one can face life without yielding to despondency or madness, since the anguish of the world is embraced by an infinite benevolence investing it with purpose. Having encountered - recalled - this benevolence, I recognized it as a personal presence. I wanted to pursue it, learn its name, discern its features.’
From this Varden moved on to explore the Scriptures more deeply but his experience is at one with that of the poet and hymn writer William Cowper who endured great personal suffering throughout his life:
God moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.
You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
but trust him for his grace;
behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain,
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain.
We’ve come a long way from the bees but their story shows that even as we look forward to the renewal of the cosmos a foretaste can be experienced now bringing evidence of the ‘infinite benevolence‘ in which we are embraced. In Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, another glimpse of a world in need of renewal, a character reflecting on how things have turned out is heard to say: ‘People stopped trying to fix problems and just tried to outlive them.‘ God is moving to fix everything and is calling men and women to get involved in the Great Project which will end when a Voice is heard: “I am making everything new!’ (Revelation 21: 5)
