Imagine that for generation after generation we have a common reference work. This work is noted particularly for its uncanny grasp of unadorned human nature as well as for man at his noblest and most inspired. It has stories about how best to practically live out one’s life; it illustrates those values central to creativity and positive accomplishment–it shows us how to be happy while avoiding sabotage by desultory short-cuts leading to entrapment: it is a steady light shining upon freedom’s arduous path.
Add to this the fact that it is a work that invites analysis by all-comers. It is open to endless iterations on the one hand, yet is uncompromising in its central message of forgiveness and redemption. It is a resource always at hand for mid-course corrections and three-dimensional navigation.
It can be confounding, but this leads to our appreciation that life is confounding and that unity is not possible without forgiveness and assent to a common bedrock of basic values that include the deceptively idealistic sounding concepts of justice, courage, truth, equality, humility....all facets of the disciplines of love central to making societies viable.
Since there is such a book, we must learn to revere it...not worship it. For the living God is ever-present, not frozen and fixed in type.
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