"[God is] a riddle
which is not
intended to be solved, but to exist.
To exist for us
always.
To trouble us always."
---Par Lagerkvist, The
Sibyl.
"What's really
interesting is the mystery.
The need for mystery is greater
than the need for an
answer."
--Ken Kesey
"Perhaps there is
something in the epistemological
makeup of man that makes him
ask the God question."
--Jack Clark (former
Professor of Theology
at Gustavus Adolphus College)
On a planet where the sun
never set and
a beautiful long-lived rainbow hung (as though
forever) in a misty sky,
a man dreamed. "How I wish I could discover
the secret of the rainbow's
beauty," he thought. Then one day the man
decided to give up his
mundane existence and dedicate his life to searching
for the source of
the arc that so mesmerized him. He set off in the
direction of the rainbow.
Day after day he marched. He never tired of
studying the rainbow--its
luminance, how one color dissolved into another, its
graceful curve.
On some days, the rainbow seemed brighter and larger
in the sky, and his
spirits rose and his feet flew across the rolling
landscape. On other
days, however, he nearly despaired as the rainbow
seemed to recede into
the distance. Yet he trekked on, determined to
discover the mystery
of the rainbow's transcendent beauty.
As years passed, and the
man continued
his quest for the source of the rainbow, many people
he met on his journey
ridiculed him. They urged him to abandon his
search.
Nearing the end of the
man's life, a thing
happened that had never happened: a rare cloud moved
across the blue sky
until it blocked the endless sun. The man
watched--first in disbelief,
then in understanding--as the rainbow he had chased
for so many years disappeared
before his eyes. He realized for the first
time that he would never
reach his rainbow. The rainbow, he understood
finally, existed only
as a pattern of light on his retina--as real as a
mirage.
Most men, learning that a
life-long quest
would end without its goal being achieved, might be
bitter. Not this
man. The search for the rainbow had given
meaning to his life.
The rainbow had filled his time with wonder.
Grateful, the man named
the rainbow "God." He bowed deeply when the
lone cloud moved past
the sun and the glorious pattern of light reappeared
in a startled sky.
--My response (over two
decades ago) to
an assignment in a course in Christian Theology,
taught by Jack Clark,
to write a short essay on my personal concept of
God.
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