So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
II Corinthians 4:16-18
Aging is a natural and yet undesirable process. This is especially true for those of us in the West, where the youthful body is not merely admired, but deified. The things we do and the money we spend in order to stay "shapely and slim" and to avoid the inevitable. Extra weight is the dreaded enemy. We diet, we exercise and religiously count those kilocalories as if they were as valuable as Krugerrands.
Independent of our age, our body type, or general physical condition, every human bears or is burdened with a weight which is unseen. For some it may be as simple be one's family name. Consider for a minute the expectation on the ice rink of any child whose father happens to have the surname Gretzky. How could someone with the name Kennedy, Bush or Clinton not have aspirations for power and politics? What was expected of my sister, born into a family of seven sports crazed brothers? Could she have become anything other than an athlete extraordinaire?
We also bear in our inmost being a special glory, independent of what the exterior frame looks like. Each human is "fearfully and wonderfully made" and bears the unique stamp of God's creation. Consider the statement of the eminent physicist and mathematician Sir Issac Newton, who had a unique perspective on the natural world by standing on the shoulders of other giants:
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In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence
Everyone... the social outcast, royalty, the obese, the arrogant, the smelly, the well educated and the not-so-well heeled has been fashioned in the image of God. What then of racial intolerance, cultural superiority and ethnic cleansing? What of the multitude of examples throughout history of "man's inhumanity to man"? To despise another human, be it a drunk on the sidewalk who is wallowing in his own vomit, or someone as erudite as the president of the World Bank is to despise the Creator rather than the creature.
There is another type of weight or burden that we all carry, which is more connected to our future, our final resting state, rather than our origin. Each one of us has a clear sense of eternity in our hearts. We long for a real experience of what we can otherwise only dream about. Hence the numerous poems and novels which explore the concept of Utopia. We hope for a new day, a new well watered land, and a better country governed righteously by the magnanimous and all-wise philosopher prince. A place where finally man lives forever in a state of perpetual peace and harmony with a glorious body which never decays. Ah sweet Shangri-La... so near and yet so far!
This vision of a glorious paradise stems in part from our own experience of Nature in its pristine form, unsullied by human intervention and interference. Who is not moved by the grandeur of a sunset, a rainbow, or even a colossal and towering dark thundercloud? Yet to the trained physicist and meteorologist, are these not merely random combinations of light and water mixed with minute fragments of grey dust? Regardless, to a man, humanity perceives them as stupendous. Have you ever humbled yourself to see the miniature wonders the world presents from a worms-eye view? In every dew drop, carefully perched at the extremity of the blade of grass, one can find a shiny and iridescent sphere teeming with a universe of its own. In viewing a fragile silvery snowflake, one readily discovers a regular and yet unique hexagonal symmetry. Even at the microscopic level our world is crying out to us with its riveting images, drawing our hearts and minds to imagine aesthetic perfection.
We also carry within ourselves a counter-glory, a dark effulgence of an entirely different kind. Perhaps one would even dare to call it glorious. With honesty and a good practical dose of reality, our authors have crafted their frightening Dystopias to remind us of the insatiable evil which lies within. The grotesque gargoyles which adorn so many of our great pieces of architecture are not merely ornamental. Rather, they are symbolic of the darkness and evil, which like the Macbethian damned spot, will simply not be washed away. The monsters that are at a distance, real or otherwise, are manageable in the sense that they are "out there". We shudder at the Pol Pots of this world and the Darth Vaders of another but at the same time smugly convince ourselves "I could never be like that". But to what extent does the Mr. Hyde of our inner man control and dominate the urbane and civilized Dr. Jekyll? What human does not face, on a daily basis, the mental struggle between the sinister Gollum and the loving and friendly Sméagol?
More frightening than any daily consideration of evil in the world or in ourselves is the notion of the endgame of life. Just as we all have a longing for heaven, we also must admit, albeit reluctantly, to imagining its deathly counterpart: hell. A place of judgment, regret, eternal darkness, loneliness and pain. A place where our Maker leaves us entirely to our own devices. Even if one has no notion of God, consider this humanistic version of hell, allegedly attributed to Bertrand Russell, the great English philosopher and Nobel Prize winner of the last century:
I suspect that at the end of my life, if I were to stand on the edge of the Universe and cry out to God all I might here is the echo of my own voice.
Finally let us consider an eternal weight of glory, which we all carry around each day. Each one of us has been given a unique glory in creation; an essential part of our humanity. Along the road of life, we constantly are in contact with a multitude of other people who not only bear the glory and image of God, but who also have an intrinsic potential for future glory.
The Biblical record is clear that life is a journey with two distinct roads. While on earth Jesus labeled them with the simple designation: wide and narrow. This image was perhaps to indicate the relative ease or difficulty of each path. He also made it quite clear, that each route has a different outcome: the tortuous way leads to life, whereas the paved expressway has a terminus of death and destruction.
As we interact with others all of our actions are directly influencing people to travel along one of these two roads. The one to a magnificent and glorious end whose beauty defies human language and experience; the other to a hideous and ugly outcome whose description we dare not even consider uttering. This is the ultimate eternal weight of glory which we all bear. May God help us to order our paths and walk humbly before him and our fellow man.
* The main thoughts in this short work have been shamelessly taken from an essay of Clive Staples Lewis, of the same name. It is available on-line at http://www.doxaweb.com/assets/doxa.pdf
