• Home
  • Biography
  • Services
  • Links & Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
 

Post Title.

8/6/2011

1 Comment

 

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION



My friend described in his e-mail a "big" issue he was pondering having to do with our expanding population and dwindling resources. He raised questions he found to be important and invited me to ponder with him the "big" issues of our day -- as he would refer to them.

My friend -- a community psychologist and anthropologist, retired and living abroad where he last taught in a university -- now enjoys the leisure of prodding me and others with information he digs out of his regular scans of the world-wide web. He is a delight to be with, stimulating, funny, insightful, and always a provocateur who nudges people toward thinking outside their comfort zones.

But his e-mail came at a time I was pondering other matters. For instance, it has come to me that the "big" issues and questions are not the same as "ultimate" issues and questions; nor for that matter are they the same as another group I would call "immediate" issues and questions. 

The issues in the "immediate" category have to do with the daily and regular concerns of home, relationships, work, and finances -- all important enough that they may feel "big" in the anxiety they can stir. Likewise, the "big" issues and questions can -- and need to -- concern us to the point where we become informed citizens of the world, engaging the perplexing challenges facing our planet in matters of environment, religious extremism, economic collapse, population growth, the widening gulf between rich and poor, etc. We will not sit idly by while these catastrophic scenarios perform their dance of death boldly before us.

But, these are not the ultimate issues, are they?  And, in fact, if we cannot or will not ask these ultimate questions, we will very likely fail in asking the big and immediate ones as well.

So, what are these ultimate questions? I have no doubt you can supply your own list if you pause for just a moment to think about them -- as I had been prompted to do so when my friend sent his e-mail.

What prompted my thinking about the nature of the ultimate question was a date that popped up on my calendar: June 26, the birthday of C.G.Jung. And I, for some reason, came to think about his visit to the Athi Plains of Nairobi, Africa in the autumn of 1925. There, in a broad savanna, with no sight or sound of another human being, walking a little distance by himself from his camp, he experienced what he called "the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been ... ." There in that eternal silence he could hear the question within himself: What is our [humanity's] myth?   In other words, he was asking what do human beings bring to this world? Why are we here?

And, as so often may happen, I found myself asking another question, one that I first encountered in the writings of a major theologian of the 20th century, Paul Tillich. The question: "Why is there something and not nothing?", which probably originated with the Greek philosopher, Parmenidies, 5th century B.C.E.

I know, the question may sound to our ears as contrived, speculatively wasteful of our time because any answer will likely satisfy only the person who attempts an answer. But, as with most ultimate questions, its significance lies in the asking and not the answering. When we remember where Tillich was when he asked that question in desperation, we may then pause to ask it for ourselves.

Paul Tillich was a philosopher/theologian with a keen intellect as well as a formal and informal education that served his mind very well. Born in 1880, in Starzeddel, a village near Berlin, Germany, ordained as a Lutheran minister but planning to become a professor, he volunteered to serve as a chaplain in the Germany army in WW I, believing in "a nice God who would make everything turn out for the best" only to find himself breaking down after prolonged service under deadly enemy fire. From the hospital where he recuperated before returning to the front lines, he wrote his family of the terrible catastrophe and "the end of the world order," as he faced almost certain death in the trenches. "Why is there something and not nothing?" Tillich found at that time he had no answer but a koan-llike question.

But is it not the case with all ultimate questions that they re-direct our thinking? Jesus of Nazareth asks, "So what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world and lose their soul?" Or the Buddha simply put it, "What is suffering?" Jesus responds to his question by pointing toward another realm of reality, the Kingdom of Heaven, that intersects this worldly order. This may not satisfy you, nor may the Buddha's preaching of the Four Noble Truths and the EIght-Fold Path. Still, their questions remain, and they may bring us into the creative sphere of a meditative silence, if heard through the clatter of the cacophony  playing in our minds.

However, there are times when the ultimate question intersects the big and immediate ones. As when I arrive home and my wife greets me, after a particularly grueling day at her work, with this question: "What do you think about Chinese take-out tonight?" That is immediate, it's really big, and I can see in her eyes it's ultimately important I answer this one right!
1 Comment

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

  • Email: randallmishoe@mac.com
  • Tel: 704-344-1100