The Point

If, like me, you have the heart of a theologian, you probably believe in your heart that history is going somewhere…that there’s a point.  

 

Many secular friends argue instead, why should there be a point?  I understand what they say, but I argue back, why should there not be a point? 

 

In two weeks, I will be two-thirds of a century old.  After years of observation and consideration, I can’t prove that there’s a point, not in a way that all of us would acknowledge as trumps.  But I have hints.    

 

           

Hint:

 

Popham Beach, Maine—January, midnight, moonless, 15 degrees below zero, stiff NW breeze: one of my favorite spots and conditions.  If you stand there long enough, you may come to recognize what no-pointedness is like.  No-pointedness is nothing, and it’s cold!  But, in fact, right there on that beach, there is not nothing.  In fact, even in that deep cold, there exists all of creation.  You see it, hear it, feel it. 

 

It would have been so much easier, wouldn’t it, for there to have been nothing, nothing, nothing at all? 

 

If there is no point, who took the trouble to make creation so?

 

           

Hint:

 

When I was a lad, each storm at sea drew me, and I forged out in my Dark Harbor 17, foolhardily alone, to brave the great swells and the winds, seaward of Saddleback Ledge, near the mouth of Penobscot Bay, Maine.  I pressed myself and my boat through the threnody of the blow.  I willed myself upwind, and—triple reefed and deck awash—I battered myself there. 

 

It was wild; on the very edge of things.    

 

            I might have stayed ashore; most people did.  When I would return, schooning into Weir Cove and rounding-up for my mooring, a few old salts might come from their cottages and stand, battered by the wind, to watch me snug the boat down and row ashore.

 

             “You were out in that?”

 

            “Sure,” I’d say.

 

            “Blowin’ wicked out there.”

 

            I’d stare across the thudding sea, crack a grin.  “Nice sail,” I’d demur.  “Nice sail.” 

 

            If there is no point, why do we have will?

 

           

Hint:

 

Between us, my wife and I have lived in four different states (two of them twice), owned five houses, and we have changed employers numerous times.  We have matured our politics.  We have changed our religion; I've converted twice. We have spoken out, publicly, when we deemed it appropriate.  We did as we wished, worked hard, failed, achieved, re-started. 

 

            Freedom. 

 

We are fortunate to live in a society which was set up and pushed onto the landscape of history by the concept that our rights as human beings are bestowed upon us by God Himself and not by the state.  We are fortunate to live in a society whose founding documents are designed to protect us as citizens from the potential tyranny of our own government, as it—inevitably—seeks to become understood as the grantor of our rights, instead of God as the grantor.      

 

If there is no point, why were our founding fathers urgent, for us, that our rights should come from the Absolute Good, rather than from a random scattering of other, temporarily powerful, sinful humans?

 

 

Hint:

 

The only time I saw my father weep was in church.  This was when I was about ten.  Usually, I was relegated downstairs, away from the service, to color pictures of a pretty-looking guy on a donkey riding through a gate.  For some reason, this time, I was upstairs.  Here was my father, weeping.  My father. 

 

I never went downstairs again; something was happening up here, and it was big.

 

            During sixteen years after college, with now and then a teaching gig when I was out of money, I went to graduate schools, chasing after theology, comparative religion, phenomenology, and how art is a mirror of creation.  Then there came raising four children in Reform Judaism, dissatisfaction with its cherry-picking of Torah, exploration of Orthodox Judaism, more dissatisfaction, and staggering out onto a spiritual desert. 

 

            Finally came Jesus, who said, “Take one more step, Dikkon.  If you’ll take one step, I’ll take two.” 

 

If there is no point, why is there belief in something greater than no-pointedness? 

 

 

            So, brothers and sisters, who advocate for there being no point, why is there something instead of nothing? 

 

Why is there will? 

 

Why is there freedom?

 

Why is there belief? 

 

Here's my answer.  Because humans are not protoplasmic happenstance, which was primordial ooze once upon a time and now shops for good cheese. 

 

There’s more to us than that.  We perceive beauty.  We love.  We sacrifice.  We yearn.  We are, in fact, integral to something larger than ourselves. 

 

And that’s the point, from my heart.    

 

 

Write a comment, if you disagree, and tell me why.  Truly, I would like to know.   


Or reach me directly at dikkon@dikkoneberhart.com.