Books
June 6, 2006
Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
Just when I was beginning to feel a mite annoyed by Terry Pratchett's sendup of organized religion and religious belief in general, he managed to get himself back on my good side with his description of Brutha's journey through the desert, where the poor clueless monk manages to teach the once-great Om a lesson in compassion; and, with a pleasant shock of recognition, I was reminded of why I liked Pratchett so much in the first place.
In the end, I suspect, Pratchett is intelligent enough, and has read enough Chesterton, to realize that the practical alternatives to religious belief are not intrinsically that much better; and that it is probably OK to go on holding onto various forms of magical thought, provided one never lets them get in the way of basic human decency. By strongly asserting the primacy, above any other consideration, of a code of moral behavior based first and foremost on understanding and compassion, Pratchett is in effect taking a religious stance with which I find myself wholly in agreement. Most people seem to think that when we say "God is love", that is some sort of metaphor; but I do not interpret it that way.
Picture borrowed from the L-space
Le Milieu Divin, by P. Teilhard de Chardin
This little book starts with a quote, in Latin, from the beginning of the famous John 3:16 verse: "So did God love the world..."; and, below it, this dedication: "For those who love the world." This gives a hint (if only a hint) of the main question that the book is to address, and the way it is going to be answered. Given both the beauty of the world and its impermanence, given both our power to learn, to love and to effect change, and the fact that no reasonable outcome can be expected that does not involve the ultimate dissolution of our ego, How then should we live?
La plus assurée doctrine de l'Église est que notre devoir, à nous, créatures, est de chercher à vivre toujours plus, par les plus hautes parties de nous mêmes, conformément aux aspirations de la vie présente. Ceci seul nous regarde. Tout le rest appartient à la Sagesse de Celui qui seul sait faire sortir, de toute mort, une autre vie.
Ne nous impatientons pas follement. Le Maître de la Mort viendra nécessairement bientôt, - et peut-être entendons-nous déjà ses pas. Ne prévenons pas son heure, ni ne la craignons. Quand il entrera en nous por détruire, en apparence, les vertus et les forces que nous aurons, avec tant de soin et d'amour, distillées pour lui de toutes les sèves de la Terre, ce sera comme un Feu aimant, pour consommer notre achèvement dans l'Union.
Content is © Julio Gea-Banacloche 2006