Why Are We Here?

We’ve learned a lot about how we got here. The last several hundred years have seen a tremendous increase in our knowledge of the constant creation going on in the universe together with the evolution of life on Earth. But the question persists. Why? That seems to be a human question. We humans have evolved with an amazing brain that provides us with a sense of self awareness, a recognition of the ME. And along with that is the development of imagination that has created language and art and the question, Why? In the long history of the development of humans, a consistent answer from all the cultures seems to include a sense of sacredness, a sense of something other, of something more to what we observe and think about and experience.

For our western culture the sacred has been pictured as a supernatural entity but with human characteristics such as compassion, justice, and love. How else can we but use our human words and pictures to describe what is beyond words. But for a large number of modern Christians, God is no longer “up there” or “out there” just beyond the dome of the sky. In the December 17 Newsletter of WesleyNexus.com, Kent Weaver succinctly describes the newer thinking.

“The divine is understood as a creative and sustaining dynamic that is present in every aspect of the universe. The notion of Emmanuel, God with us, is profound with us [as Christians.] It means that the presence of the sacred can be found in every human being. But such an understanding leads to an existential challenge. How does one enter into and celebrate communion with an ultimate presence that is so abstractly understood? Ah, that’s the tricky part.

“Perhaps the practical answer is that it can only be experienced within relationship, activity, and community. Perhaps the divine is to be encountered in interacting with creation. Thrusting oneself into the world, the environment, the lives of other people – and helping others in their quest into living and being – becoming, not withdrawing. Perhaps there are times when contemplation and meditation are necessary for renewal, re-centering , and re-commitment. But they are not to be the center or focus of existence. Despite our existential experience of fundamental isolation, life is not ultimately an individual pursuit.”

We humans are an integral part of all of life. We belong to the entire universe. We encounter the sacred in new ways now with our new knowledge revealed to us over recent years. Such encounters continue to be filled with wonder and awe.  For each of us, as the author of John has Jesus say, “know that I am in my Father, and I in you, and you in me”. (John 14:20). Why are we here?  To experience God not only within me, but through me and beyond me, in community, in relationships to people, to society, and to the Earth itself.

Loren Bullock
December 21, 2017