“He saved others; Himself He cannot save” (Mark 15:31)
Everywhere I look in the sky, no matter
what the direction nor how distant the object, whatever I see is either acting
on or being acted upon by something else. It is either orbiting something else, or is itself being orbited. It is either attracting something else,
or is in
turn being attracted. It is either illuminating its surroundings, or is itself
being illuminated. Nothing is alone; nothing exists in isolation. There is a
bedrock fundamental something to be discovered here, and double stars are
perhaps the clearest visible illustrations of whatever this is to the amateur
astronomer.
Albereo
But allow me to digress a bit. I am
forever amazed by how much the whole of my subsequent life has been influenced
by the relatively short time I spent in the Army (1975-1979). I truly believe
that I learned and grew more in those four years than in any other comparable
length of time. From insignificant mannerisms (how I stand, what I do with my
hands while walking, the fact that I always start off on the left foot) to
fundamental ways I view the world, I keep finding bits and pieces of my Army
experience down there in my subconscious, nudging (or pushing) me in one direction
or another.
One really good example is foxholes. One
of the first things we learned in Basic Training at good old Fort Ord,
California, was the correct (that is, the Army’s) way to dig one. And if you
have some picture in your mind taken from a host of cheesy WWII movies (hole in
the ground, head and rifle sticking out) – get rid of it now. What we were
taught was the DuPuy foxhole, named after the general who invented it. DuPuy
had studied the carnage of Vietnam (remember, I enlisted only about 3 months
after the fall of Saigon), and realized that everyone had been doing it all
wrong ever since, well… ever since ever. The problem with firing out of a hole
in the ground was that an advancing foe could fire right back at you. Thus the
high casualty rate on both sides in a defensive battle.
General DuPuy (right) with Westmoreland in Vietnam
What DuPuy came up with was a system of
mutually supporting two-man foxholes. “Buddy Teams” of two soldiers would each
dig their own pit, piling all the excavated dirt directly in front of the hole,
completely blocking one’s view straight ahead. When you were finished, you
could fire diagonally to the left or to the right, but immediately in front of
you was this great earthen berm, higher than your head. The end result was
that, in a line of these DuPuy “Defensive Fire Pits” (to use the official term),
each buddy team was responsible for protecting the team to either side of them,
while their own defense was left in turn to those teams. To work, the system
required complete trust between the teams. You yourself could do absolutely
nothing to protect yourself, and concentrated all your attention and efforts on
defending your neighbors.
Think
about this for a moment. There is a really profound principle at work here. One
that I think goes to the very core and fundament of our being - of the universe
itself. It is the indispensable principle behind How
We Must Live. As the poet Charles Williams so beautifully put it:
This abides – that the everlasting house the soul discovers is
always another’s; we must lose our own ends; we must always live in the habitation
of our lovers, my friend’s shelter for me, mine for him.
The
consequence of ignoring this is not just selfishness. It is not just missed
opportunity or a life sadly lacking in color or meaning – it is a violation of
the very nature of reality. To attempt to live for one’s self is an exercise in
futility – you will fail.
One
of the most awesome passages in the New Testament occurs near the end of Mark.
Christ has been crucified, and various passersby taunt Him, asking why He
doesn’t “save yourself and come down from the cross”. They conclude with the
scoffing remark, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save”.
Wow.
Read that again. What was meant as a contemptuous dismissal, as a cynical
comment on apparent failure, turns out to be the very key to The Meaning of
Life itself. We cannot save ourselves – we must
rely on others. And it is up to us in turn to save them. This is what it means
to be a Human Being. When we fall short of this principle, we fall short of and
even deny altogether, our very Humanity.
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