The world around us, and whatever power lies behind it, refuses to let us abandon life’s deepest questions. We are rarely permitted to rest entirely at ease within the metaphorical cave of limited perception. While the universe may not be personal in a human sense, it consistently prevents us from finding fulfillment in reductive views of our existence. We must ask ourselves: are we merely toolmakers, “naked apes,” or the byproduct of selfish genes, or is there a higher purpose to our being?
Humanity is never truly satisfied by looking downward; there is an innate, persistent reaching upward. When Plato famously described a human as a “featherless biped,” Diogenes highlighted the absurdity of such a narrow definition by plucking a chicken and presenting it as a “Platonic man.” We instinctively know we are made for more, and this restlessness drives us to seek a wider reality. For those who pay attention, the universe is alive with signals suggesting a world of warmth and brilliance beyond the cave, lit by the sun and the Author of all creation. In this pursuit of meaning, many find clarity by discovering God’s plan for life.
Even if we are intent on suppressing wonder or leading unexamined lives, the world never stops speaking to us about our true selves. We are free to ignore these signals by turning up the volume of our daily diversions, settling for small worlds and easy answers. However, the universe continues to offer myriad clues and pointers for those willing to listen. Recognizing these external prompts not only aids our spiritual journey but also helps us discern seasons of leadership and personal growth.
Listening to such signals of transcendence is only one part, but a vital part, of leading an examined life. It is for those who are not content to remain tone-deaf to wider realities, and who have not fallen for what Friedrich Nietzsche called the acoustic illusion—the fallacy that what we ourselves cannot hear is not objectively there to be heard.
Do you already “know what you see and hear,” in the sense that you have already made up your mind about what there is to be seen and heard, so that you can see and hear nothing else? Or do you “see and hear in order to know,” in the sense that you are open to the surprise of new insight and fresh perception? Seeing and hearing only what you know is thinking shackled by the past. Seeing and hearing in order to know is the way of a mind and a heart that are open to a breakthrough and to a future different from both the past and the present.
That we almost all hear such signals is beyond doubt. But let me be clear. The signals are pointers, and not proofs, and they can be ignored rather than listened to.
TO EACH, THEIR OWN SIGNAL
The question to ask is how we have each responded to signals—especially when the censors and the scoffers form so loud a chorus and a cordon around us. What do such signals mean? Are they only a will-o’-the- wisp, leading honest seekers astray into the darkness and the bogs of illusion? Are they only a false dawn that ushers in a day no different and no better than today? Or are they signals pointing to solutions that are solid and to satisfactions that are a delight? What is the truth to which the signals point? Does the search show that there is nothing more to life than our caves and our windowless worlds? Or do the signals, and the stories of those who followed them, point the way to the promise and fulfillment of the something more that encourages us to surpass ourselves and make life more richly satisfying than it is now?
The answer is not for me to spell out here. It is for each reader to decide for herself or himself through search and discovery. Without question, we all hear at times such signals. But again, the question is what we do with them—our responsibility in responding to them. Are we too shy, too embarrassed to even consider them as signals, to share our experiences with others, and to follow the thrusting logic of their questions, wherever they lead and whatever the cost? Are we afraid of reaching conclusions that might be dismissed as odd, deluded, or out of line with fashionable opinion in our day? In the world of the blind, the one-eyed person always runs the risk of being scoffed at as an idiot.
We live in an age in which the overwhelming majority of people appear to be comfortable with their myopia. They are satisfied with the comforts and conveniences of the cave and the windowless world. Our main challenge is to prompt people to think and care sufficiently to begin to ask questions. In each of the stories shared here, the people who followed the signals would all say they that their discoveries outshone the importance of the signals by far. Once they had arrived, who cared about the signals? Yet without the signals, they would not have arrived, and they might never have set off on the search. Each signal, then, is small and insignificant in itself, yet titanic in its significance for the whole of life.
In the same way, we can say with certainty that those who close their ears to such signals, for whatever reason, are certain to be losers. In terms of Plato’s parable, the closed-minded condemn themselves to serve out their life sentences in their various caves and cells, with no chance of discovering whether the light and freedom of the sun outside are real. Lacking all curiosity, they are content to live in the darkness and never know the truth. But it is time for the signals and the stories to speak for themselves and to let each of us decide for ourselves. There are always choices and consequences in life, and the responsibility to decide them and live with them is always ours.
One truth, however, runs like a thread through the stories. Each signal of transcendence sounds out its own special call. No signal is a signal for everyone to hear, so one person’s signal is another person’s silence. Be ready, then, for the call that will come to you in your life. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
Taken from Signals of Transcendence by Os Guinness. ©2023 by Os Guinness. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
