Part 2: Myth And Meaning

For the next four days I am in Atlanta speaking to a couple thousand of my closest youth worker friends at Youth Specialties. I’m kicking this trip off today by speaking for a total of 4 hours (Research for a Productive Generation (because I’m really tired of research just being used as ammunition) and Answering the Tough Questions on Sexual Identity), 2 book signings and a couple meetings. So here is a quick thought for the day:

Here is Part 1

Levi-Strauss, the father of Structural Anthropology, twice, referenced the following quote regarding the human mind’s quest for order:

“Since, after all, the human mind is only part of the universe, the need to find order probably exists because there is some order in the universe and the universe is not chaos” (p. xi and p. 13).

I found this quote thought provoking because although Levi-Strauss is coming from a secularist point of view, his quest is to explain humanity’s innate yearning to find meaning and purpose/order within a chaotic world—the reason why religion is such a prominent construct, and has been throughout history. I get a kick out of realizing that the ultimate answer to this structural anthropologists question is the Answer found in Christ Jesus. Humanity can rationalize or research anything to the point they feel as though it is understood (or not, as Levi-Strauss admits: “Every myth is driven by the obsessive need to solve a paradox that cannot be solved.”), but the unchanging depth of our Lord is still profound centuries later. There is order to the universe—and something had to create it.

As a famous evangelist says, “When people today look at a house, they innately know someone built it. They don’t just think it was created without planning and structure; like it just somehow became a house. They would never live in such a place.”

Much love.

Part 2: Myth and Meaning