The hero’s greatest deed, we remember with quiet awe.
The story itself is the best eulogy possible. Its fearsome holiness stuns to silence.
The death of Jesus, the greatest story, teaches me by including my questions, both literally—“My God, why have you forsaken me?”—and implicitly—“How could this have been God’s will?”
But the largest of questions, it leaves unanswered, to resonate in my unquiet heart:
“How can it be true?”
“And what should I do now that I know this?”
A good story makes you think you'll discover the secret but it always leaves you with the realization that the mystery itself was the real treasure.
Incorporating our questions in the hero’s search for answers provides comfort and helps us identify. His questions prove that in the absence of easy solutions, no one is alone in his longing for an answer.
But there’s an even greater comfort.
The resolution of a good story shows others, namely the hero—and by extension, the author—must also accept the mystery of life and respond.
And the only proper response is the one revealed in the greatest story.
Humility.
Honesty.
Selflessness.
Giving all.
Answers are always elusive. And thank God.
Because to be given what we think we want would ruin everything.
Instead, Love gives us what we really need.
A hero's response to the mystery.
Hymn 15: Taste
O guide my judgement and my taste,
Sweet SPIRIT, author of the book
Of wonders, told in language chaste
And plainness, not to be mistook.
...
O take the book from off the shelf,
And con it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch’d to teach and please.
Respect, adore it heart and mind.
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand,
Who reads the most, is most refind’d,
And polish’d by the Master’s hand.
—Christopher Smart
[quoted in Acceptable Words, Schmidt and Stickney]
Recent Comments