Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions
Just returned from Camp of the Woods in northern Ontario
Canada. Sounds like its way north, well
This year I came away with the some interesting answers to
life’s biggest questions. Mostly thanks
to a book I had the opportunity to read from Manhattans own Timothy
Keller. The book is titled “Unexpected
Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions”. I’ll
cut to the chase and offer the best part of the book for me (page 29-30):
“David Foster Wallace. He go to the top of his
profession. He was an award-winning,
bestselling postmodern novelist known around the world for his boundary-pushing
storytelling. A few years before the end
of his life, he gave a now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College. He said to the graduating class: Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to
worship. And the compelling reason for
maybe choosing some sort of god … to worship … is that pretty much anything
else you worship will eat you alive. If
you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life,
then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual
allure, and you will always feel ugly.
And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths
before your loved ones finally plant you …
Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will
need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you
will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found
out. Look, the insidious thing about
these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful; it is that they’re
unconscious. They are the default
settings.
Wallace was by no means a religious person, but he
understood that everyone worships, everyone trusts in something for their
salvation, everyone bases their lives on something that requires faith. A couple of years after giving that speech,
Wallace killed himself. And this
nonreligious man’s parting words to us are pretty terrifying: “Something will
eat you alive.” Because even though you
might never call it worship, you can be absolutely sure you are worshiping and
you are seeking. And Jesus says, “Unless
you’re worshiping me, unless I’m the center of your life, unless you’re trying
to get your spiritual thirst quenched through me and not through these other
things, unless you see that the solution must come inside rather than just pass
by outside, then whatever you worship will abandon you in the end.
Highly recommend you get a copy and read it. Canada, more than just the land of moose and
beautiful sunsets.
Comments