The Essence of Life

[Oil painting by Leah Saulnie]

So...I was thinking...we're a pretty conceited bunch, us humans. We're always believing that what we believe is truth and everyone else just doesn't get it. Especially when it comes to ourselves. We think that if we're smart enough, or wise enough, or experienced enough, we can figure out what we're all about. Each one of us has a belief about where "it" all came from. The world. Creation. Us. If someone was asked where it all came from, they'd either have some semblance of an answer, or they'd stop and think about it and try to come up with an answer (you just did, didn't you?). As if we could actually tap into an answer for such a question.

Admit it. It would be an extremely rare person that would answer that they know absolutely nothing about how life began because a created thing cannot comprehend its own creation or creator.
(however, some of you might be self-aware enough to have acknowledged your own ignorance while reading that last sentence - but if you acknowledged your ignorance after it was pointed out that you might be self-aware enough to do so, you probably haven't accepted your ignorance, but just have a desire to be self-aware, and you are now, instead, starting to think that I have no idea what I'm talking about and I'm being conceited by acting as if I know you, which, obviously, I am. But then, so are you, and I've just given you another example of how we're all pretty conceited)

Anyway, I was thinking how conceited we are because I had this conversation with a friend the other day about God creating the world, and Adam and Eve, and how long did that really take, and was it really seven real days, or was it over millions of years, or did God make millions of years of stuff happen in just seven days? The day after our conversation, I realized it makes no difference at all how long it took.

Life was created.

That sort of puts a grinding halt to any thought processes about how or when or why or who. How can we possibly comprehend the least little thing about creation when we are intrinsically incapable of grasping the concept of life coming into existence from nothing. How can we, the created, understand anything about our own creation?

Yet, we spend an incredible amount of human energy believing, discussing, studying, and explaining the who, what, when, where, why and how of our existence, as if we know what the essence of life even is. None of us has a clue. It's the elephant in the room and we're all talking about its trunk and wrinkly skin and little fuzzy hairs and droopy eyes and floppy ears and whether its breath is sweet or salty, but no one admits there is an elephant there. We all know that we can't possibly comprehend the creation of our own life, but we all live as if the base-line for human intelligence is the assumption that, if we just try hard enough, we can figure out what life is all about.

Admit it. The only way we can know anything about creation is by divine revelation.
I ache for it. Divine revelation.