Dear one,
Sometimes I catch myself asking, “Really?” for sometimes I’m intrigued by the random thoughts wafting within the chambers of my mind. Recently the following line echoed within those chambers:
“I’ll build a stairway to heaven, ’cause heaven is where you are.”
Without question this line dates me; it’s a line taken from Neil Sedaka’s 1960 album, Stairway to Heaven. Although I’m not certain, this line might have been in the context of thoughts relating to Genesis 1-11.
You might recall that Genesis 1-11 provide a three-fold accounting, characteristic of our humanity: Adam and Eve, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. Each of these accounts portrays humanity’s failure and “fall,” the third indicating the failure of a united, technological enterprise: to build a tower (a ziggurat?) to heaven. But of course, the building of the tower reflects the two previous failures: our human desire to be gods and goddesses. To reign, to be subject to no one—these are those deep-seated tendencies, evident in Genesis 1-11.
This noted, I’m not seeking to denigrate the “technological world”—since I am gratefully dependent upon that world and its great advances. Rather, I am reminded that our human history is replete with our attempts to build a stairway to heaven, only to find that confusion, isolation, and destruction result—only to find that we’ve built a stairway to hell.
As I look out our window upon springtime freshness, I’m keenly aware that my present ramblings might appear as grim reminders either of the plight of Prometheus or of Sisyphus: always striving but never attaining; always doomed to repetitive futility. However, as I have shared with you previously, it depends upon the lenses we use. To view our world as a perpetual Ukrainian-Russian war—although such a view has merit—is myopic. Likewise, to view our world as a never-ending spring—with gamboling lambs and the lapping of pacific waters—is equally myopic, often readily dismissed.
In my view, a tension exists, that we must hold together, namely, that our world is both “terrible” and “good,” or as the English regularly express, “terribly good.” If we refuse to abide this tension, we will find ourselves wandering in realms of either delusion or despair. However, equally in my view, I/we need One who is intimate with this tension and yet not subject to it.
That is, although our world is filled with springtime daffodils and mass killings—simultaneously—I do find comfort and hope in the words of Psalm 34:
“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, / and his ears are open to their cry …
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, /and rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
However we define “the righteous,” the message is clear: they are those who cry, are troubled, brokenhearted, and crushed, in need of One who is not bound by the stairways we build—and One who sees, hears, and will rescue. But if we continue to build our own stairways, unaided from the outside, then ...
Step by step,
Stan