When I Sit and When I Stand….

“O Lord, you have probed me and you know me;

    you know when I sit and when I stand;

    you understand my thoughts from afar.

My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,

    with all my ways you are familiar.”

~Psalm 139:1-3

These verses speak of the God who creates the whole universe, who transcends all things, and who is “nearer to me than I am to myself.” The Infinite. The Mystery. The “still, small voice” that whispers in the depths of every human soul the ineffable promise that sustains our seeking and awakens our conscience. The only One who corresponds to the “forever” that moves us to even begin to desire anything.

For most of history, for the vast majority of the human race, the Mystery seems obscured beyond all thought and all manner of searching. Still, everyone searches….

When the followers of Confucius asked him about what happens when we die, he responded with a brilliant and provocative question: “How can we understand death when we don’t understand life?” Or, in Classical Chinese: 焉知死 (A.I. can find the text for me, and provide links to various attempts to explain it, but it can’t answer the question; it can’t even explain what Confucius really meant by asking it).

The Lord knows “when I sit and when I stand.” The Lord knows how much my “sitting” and “standing” are taken up with trying to learn the deep currents of a great and ancient civilization that remains grounded upon this question, and whose peoples cannot avoid this question no matter how hard they try.

The Lord knows every one of these persons, and loves each of them with an everlasting love. The Heart of Jesus Christ knows and loves each of them on the Cross. This I know by the gift of faith, and by the gratuitous and overflowing love of God. I certainly don’t deserve to know anything (and can barely remember what is given to me every day).

In these times, the love of Christ compels us to bear witness to Him, which entails also the task of listening, learning, and engaging in dialogue with all of humanity. Faith opens us up to every human person and to all of history, calling us to share in the inexhaustible mystery of the concreteness and the ardor of Christ’s love. The study of history and the dialogue between civilizations don’t yield “easy answers,” but they are sustained by great wonder and great hope.