I have decided to form a new book club, the Methuselah Book Club. Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years (Genesis 6:27). I figure it will take that kind of life span to read all the books I would like to read! Any other charter members out there?

One author whose books grace my shelf, mostly unread, is Ernest Becker. Becker was a social theorist who wrote about fundamental questions regarding the human condition. I have dipped into Becker’s work from time to time, but have not had the opportunity to delve more deeply into his writings and I look forward to the day when I will do that. Becker’s most well known work is The Denial of Death. It was awareded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1974, the year Becker died. The companion book, Escape from Evil was published posthumously. Cheery titles, I know.

Recently, I read an essay from Becker’s book Angel in Armor: a post-Freudian perspective on the nature of man. In “Everyman as Pervert, an essay on the pathology of normalcy” (again, intersting title – thankfully that wasn’t the book title!) Becker argues for a view of human maturity as accepting self-transcendence. That is, human beings are more mature, more fully human, when they can be open to an encounter with the fullness of the world, its mystery and complexity. “This is the way we give life its abundance of meaning: we revel in the multiplicity of natural mystery” (32). Becker argues “it takes strength to allow oneself to feel transcended” (33), that is, to acknowledge the depth of the other. We become human “by developing powers commensurate with responsible social living, by learning to endure failure, by respecting the integrity of other humans, by sagaciously testing the limits of his claims, by being suspicious of force, and seeking to check its use and dominion among men” (34). Becker’s vision of a healthy human community would be of “stong, independent, self-reliant people, who will be happy and patient to live with threatening complexity and overwhelming mystery” (34). “Man becomes supremely man by cultivating a sense of tragedy, responsibility, and awe” (34)

I would quibble with some of Becker’s terminology and certainly find his use of masculine pronouns troubling – but he was writing in a time before we became more cognizant of the limits of such langauge. However, I deeply appreciate Becker’s main argument – we are more fully human when we are open to the mystery and complexity of the world around us, when we can grant that others to whom we are related are truly other, that is, they have an integrity all their own which we need to appreciate.

In a very different genre, the poet Mary Oliver invites us to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the world in which we live. Oliver is a favorite poet of mine, and her most recent book of poems is Red Bird. I am savoring it a poem a day. One poem in this volume is “Another Everyday Poem” and in it she writes of considering lillies and ravens – each a miracle. Yet she also notices that “for the lillies/in their bright dresses/cannot last/but wrinkle fast/and fall,” The raven, too, in scavaging for food, reminds her of the brevity of life and beauty, but in the end even this brevity “makes the world/so full/so good.”

Openness to the world in all its beauty and mystery and tragedy – awe in encountering the mystery of another - - - Becker and Oliver, each in their own way invite me to this life stance. But I have heard the invitation before and keep trying to answer it, helped by writers like Becker and poets like Oliver. Jesus asked his disciples, among whom I count myself, to consider the lillies of the field, and he invites disciples to fullness of life. The prophet Isaiah invites us to consider the withering of the grass and the fading of the flower, in contrast to the enduring reality of God. Knowing that we, too, wither and fade, we nevertheless can find in the midst of our lives renewed strength, wings to take flight, as we are open to the God who is made known in the very mystery and complexity of life.

In his final months, Ernest Becker was interviewed by Sam Keen for Psychology Today. In that interview, Becker tells Keen, On my hard days, I am a Stoic and I know that the courageous thing to do is look straight at the wintery smile on the face of truth. But on those soft days when I am permeable to everything around me, anything seems possible and I know that the courageous way is the one with greater trust and greater openness to what is strange.

To live life with the courage to be open and trusting, even while acknowledging the wintery face of truth, is what I mean when I write about living with faith and with feathers.

David