Greatness, rareness, fewness, muchness ...

Job had been through a lot. He had experienced a financial meltdown. Several of his close family members had died. He was smitten with illness. His life was falling apart. When life's circumstances are against us we ask questions. Job did. So did his friends. And between them they came up with all kinds of answers to the question: "Why?" Some of the answers seemed more convincing than others, but Job was left deeply dissatisfied. Eventually God answers Job:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7) 
God's answer to Job goes on for a while. In the answer, God gives Job a tour of the universe repeatedly asking Job, "Who did all this? Do you get it? How much of this do you really understand?" (My paraphrase)

The point of Job (of the many points of Job) is that whatever circumstances in life we face, however much we think we have a grasp of the situation—an understanding, a reason—there is always more that we do not—cannot—see or understand.


In Job's case it left him humbled, in awe at the greatness, rareness, muchness, fewness of God's amazing universe.

One of my favorite poems is by Robert Graves, "Warning to Children." It begins:

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live ...

(You can read the whole poem here: Warning to Children by Robert Graves)

The challenge laid down by Graves is, "Will you untie the string?" "Will you open the box?" "Will you question?" Graves knows, as I know, as you know, that, of course, we will untie the string. Of course we will question. We are hard-wired to inquire. But as we know from that other great myth, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we run the risk of losing Edenic innocence. Knowledge spoils us even as it ennobles us.

Occasionally you meet people who "know" everything. Recently I met a young man, still a pre-teen, who was like this. On every subject—no exaggeration—he had an opinion, cast with the force of certitude. On everything! There was no changing his mind. No presentation of evidence to the contrary would shift him. If later he was proved wrong, he would justify why at the time he was still right! In the end I simply gave in and adopted the mantra, "Yes, of course you're right!" or "You know best!" It would have been quite comical, if it had not been so sad. My hope is that, as the young man matures, he will develop a little humility at the complexity and ambiguity of life, at the impossibility of knowledge.

For this is where we find ourselves: perennial inquirers for the answer to life's questions, with the answer tantalizingly just beyond or reach.

For Job, satisfaction was found with the humility of realizing he just did not know. But there is One who does know, and Job was content to rest before this One—to live in the ambiguity of knowledge not yet.

+Ab. Andy