Purposeful Musings?

Excerpt from the spring 2007 issue of Harvard Divinity Today:

 

“Science is no replacement for religion,” Nowak (Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard) said, “because we are interested in many questions which are not scientific. For example, what is the purpose of my life? Where do I come from? Where will I go?”

 

Indeed, some of these questions cannot be answered by science. The scientific project prides itself on treating only those questions that can be proved or unproved; questions that can be validated or invalidated through hypotheses, testing, and the evaluation of empirical data. “What is the purpose of my life?’ does not fall into this category. I do think that science can respond to the question, “Where do I come from?” (though I find it disturbing that a Professor at Harvard ended a sentence with a preposition)…

 

Doire tangent: Harvard Joke:

Freshman (to an upperclassman): “Do you know where the library is at?”

Upperclassman: “We at Harvard do not end sentences with prepositions.”

Freshman: “OK then, do you know where the library is at, asshole?”

 

Anyway… I DO think that science can answer the question “From where do I come?” but certainly not, “Where will I go?”

 

As regards the question “From where do I come?” I personally care only to look as far back as human history. Beyond that, origins are at best scientifically speculative and/or mythological. To examine the effects of 5000 years of human history is enough stuff for analysis and it is burdened with enough problems. As regards the question, “Where will I go?” I have already answered that question in this blog. I don’t care. I care not for an afterlife, nor do I need one. My narcissism, extensive though it might be, does not prevail upon me to insist that I live forever in some otherworldly realm. This life is enough for me. There is enough beauty, purpose and grace. Here.

 

Which I suppose leads us to the remaining question posed by Dr. Nowak, “What is the purpose of life?” Ha! Do you think that I am arrogant enough to propose that for you? No. My audacity would not stretch so far. But I am always astonished by the human search for meaning that is so desperate it would excuse an omnipotent god of unspeakable crimes; it would find meaning in suffering that is (to quote Emmanuel Levinas) “useless;” it would assign ultimate purpose in a Will that would condemn millions to fiery damnation. Why must the human imagination stretch so far so as to find a purpose for this life? Isn’t living it enough? Isn’t that grace enough?

 

As for me, my purpose is fulfilled when I tell a student that I love him and he is so moved as to become speechless, because it is the truth. My purpose is accomplished when I move to the rhythms of my own longings and I delight in the fulfillment. My purpose is fulfilled when I stand before a crushed soul who needs only a hand extended and my arms are there, and open. I am so tired of humanity seeking purpose in spaces and places other than those that stand right before them. When will we understand? My purpose is proposed to me in the very instant that there is a need expressed before my eyes and before my heart. My purpose is fulfilled when I rise up to meet it and greet it and embrace it in the constant and ever moving flow of humanity that I encounter, every day.

Do I need religion to respond to THAT? NO. I need only the willingness to bend whichever way life takes me, and into whatever hollow sounding breath is blown my way, and to whatever joy is there for the taking.