On Becoming Human

You can survive on your own.  You can grow strong on your own.  You can even prevail on your own.  But you cannot become human on your own.

Frank Buechner

Listening to Your LIfe, 13

It All Makes Sense

Reality makes sense to us in at least three ways.  First, reality makes sense to us in an everyday, which is for us common sense.  We sense the world, physical and cultural, and these ordinary, everyday things make sense to us.  Only philosophers wonder if they are real.  For the rest of us, the common world of our physical and cultural senses is real.  Second, we have a moral sense, which helps us navigate our social world.  It is a sense composed of values, attitudes, and ethical principles and behaviors.  It is, to be sure, related to our common sense, but it is also something universal across human cultures.  Finally, we have a spiritual sense, which again is culturally bound in many ways yet universal across human cultures.  With it, we sense a realm of metaphysical realities, such as the human spirit, awe, wonder, mystery, and the mystical.  For people of religious faith, it is with this sense that we sense the Presence of God or the reality of the Dharma.

The boundaries between these realities are porous, but they all make sense to us—in different ways of course.  Cultures define reality, up to a point.  So, too, do our individual personalities define how we sense what is real.  Experiences shape our senses and sometimes radically change what makes sense to us—what is real for us.  We, nonetheless, all have common, moral, and spiritual sensibilities, which all make sense to us.

Our Purpose

The Shorter Catechism, an honored resource for faith of our Presbyterian tradition, answers the question, "What is the chief end of man?" with the statement, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."  That sounds quaint to modern ears, but it actually means something quite profound, namely that we humans are constructed to reach out for that which is Beyond us.  We are created to have an affection for that which is Beyond the Universe.  Millions of years of evolutionary sculpting has gone into our longing for something, something Beyond.  We name the Beyond "God" because we perceive that it is ultimate and thus at the end of all else that is beyond us—and that it is holy and thus stands outside of the universe in an incomprehensible way.  The catechism claims that we are linked to this Beyond to such an extent that the praise and enjoyment of it is our highest purpose.  Put this way, many dwellers of the 21st century may well consider the whole idea ridiculous, but it is hardly "quaint." Put this way, the catechism claims that we are created for worship and for a level of joy not yet attained.   Put this way, the catechism claims is that earthly evolution is climbing its way aeon by aeon toward God and that the rate of acceleration is increasing.

Why does humanity exist?  What is our purpose?  Our primary reason for becoming is to ride the rising tide of evolution in worship and with joy.