Broken

In Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, humanity ventures to the forgotten wastelands of civilization, the Savage Reservations, to catch a glimpse of the pain and suffering associated with birth, family, monogamy, and old age. In the New World which the majority of humanity now finds themselves, life is a euphoric paradise conditioned in their minds to suit their inevitable role in society. Pain, disease, sorrow, desire…all of these are done away with in order to create a world of heavenly happiness, a world of pleasant conformity that allows no trace of sorrow to slip through. In a very real sense, humanity has found heaven on earth. Yet anyone who has read Huxley’s work comes to undeniable conclusion that this Brave New World might have more in common with Hell than Heaven.

Over the years I have often come to question the character of God, a being that in one breath is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, all just, and yet has created a world that is so full of horror and pain that it stands to reason that some of these attributes must stand in contrast to the others. An illogical God if you well. I recognize that I am simply restating a question that haunted all religious tradition throughout the centuries, be it Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, etc. The inevitable paradox of God’s nature and power, seemingly standing in contradiction to one another for all eternity. The Christians throw out Calvinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Predestination, and The Fall in an attempt to reconcile this paradigm while the Buddhist simply admit that life is suffering but through suffering brings life and enlightenment. Each religion battles this question in its own terms and amazingly enough, are able to come up with a wide variety of answers. Yet maybe what we are missing is the beauty and truth that is captured in this seeming absurdity of reason.

Possibly it is the very flawed character of humanity that enables the truth and beauty that we have come to value so highly. We are a society that values the tragedy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and can look upon the sadness and angst of Vango’s masterworks and recognize the beauty in those dark brush strokes. It is through the heart breaking loss of a lover that we truly find ourselves and our reaction to injustice and suffering that define our character. So much of our individuality is wrapped up in our likes and dislikes, yet a “perfect world” could never exist unless we all agreed to collectively like and dislike the exact same things. It is the imperfections of our world that define and shape our being; heartbreak and love, danger and courage, violence and peace, anger and mercy. How could we truly know the depths of our humanity with out all of these things? Oddly enough, it seems as though it is through a shattered glass that we best catch a reflection of ourselves and of God.

Yet here I sit in a land where so often the darkness seems so dark and the pain so painful that one has to question if it all worth while. Would I trade all of this, my very self, for a Brave New World of happy sameness? Yet even here, in a place of so much suffering, children are born, weddings are had, laughter is shared, and individuals are defined and strengthened through the perseverance of such trails. Even here there is beauty and hope…and life.