Easter was last week, the Orthodox celebrate Pascha this week. A benefit of being a theist is that every human has value, created equal by the Creator, and we do not have to be the most valuable to ourselves. When theists who are Christians say “Jesus is Lord,” they say something even more valuable: I do not have to awesome, but God loves me.
Secularism (at least the Internet ubiquitous white American variety) has an impossible challenge: individuals must create meaning for self and community while also not becoming insufferable egotists. Now the religious (looks to self) have enough struggle with becoming self-centered boors, yet at least someone, anyone, can point this out to us (to me) and we have to admit: I am not the center of the cosmos, the star of my own blockbuster movie.
All of this is parallel to the urban legend that Christians were disturbed when geocentrism was falsified because humanity lost status. We used to matter and then discovered people are small in a great cosmos: enter secularism. Plainly this sort of pop secularist has never read Dante: the center is where the trash goes and Satan is in the very center of the cosmos, flapping his wings, and gumming eternally some traitors. The problem with the new cosmology is that it made the Earth too important (!) by pushing us up into the heavens!
The entire argument falters, because such folk accuse Christians of not seeing how unimportant humanity is (in the great big cosmos!) AND being too down-on-people. This is silly, because Christians have never thought we were such a much in terms of power or size and we have value because God loves us. We do not have to be the brightest and best in the cosmos to matter.
What a relief . . . I am not such a much; even though I must matter to me! This is comforting, since it has the benefit of being true and does not undercut God’s love for me. Nothing is needed for value. . . . Especially not size, power, or some mad skill set.
Jesus loves us just the way we are, so we can become better than we are!
The tedious pop culture that is always selling us something celebrates “ME.” How boring is that? Could we celebrate beauty, goodness, truth? Nobody can sell those things: anyone can be a saint without paying tuition, the stars shine for free, and Euclidean proofs are there to be worked! Jazzing up ME is going to cost, because there is not enough there there to sustain a lifetime of interest, let alone eternity.
Saying this does not mean that we should dislike or denigrate self: I am not the hero of the age or even the next CS Lewis, but I am a child of God. I am who I am and that can be good if I become what I should be and can be. As a person who struggles with biologically based depression this matters: self-loathing is equal folly.
As Pascha approaches here on the Saturday before we plunge back into the cosmic party (Christmas was not so long ago), we pause: the tomb is symbolically full, life waiting to be born, the hard side of reality, sin and death, faced honestly.
Yet.
Pascha is coming and so is Paradise.
Oh.
I can hardly wait.
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