I Would Know How Fleeting I Am

April 21, 2008

It is comforting to think about the Psalms:

Let me know, O Lord, my end
and what is the measure of my days.
I would know how fleeting I am.
Look, mere handspans You made my days,
and my lot is as nothing before You.
Mere breath is each man standing.
In but shadow a man goes about.
Mere breath he murmurs—he stores
and knows not who will gather. [39.5-7]

These verses stand out more when you realize there is no afterlife lurking behind them. When the Psalmist speaks of life as a mere breath, there is no hidden parenthesis understood to add (then you wake up in heaven with eternal life). There is no next life. This is abundantly clear in a later Psalm:

Recall how fleeting I am,
    how futile you made all humankind.
What man alive will never see death,
    will save his life from the grip of Sheol? [89.48-9]

Life is fleeting and lifeless Sheol is the destination for all.. the place where there can be no praising of God.

One of life's great lessons is the folly of all hope for immortality.. of any kind. We search here and there for some way to keep our name and memory alive. In modern America children are raised watching celebrities and ball players and paying homage to great talent.. and it is hard not to let all that rub off on you. There is a lot that has to be broken down inside us if we are to judge life rightly. It is obscene to think in these categories of fame and accomplishment when in our lifetimes the world will come to hold nine billion people.

Our current political campaigns are interesting not least because the candidates must go through the process of attaching constituencies to themselves. The goal of a campaign is to make the candidate a channel for the largest possible block of people.. which means an equal measure of deferment and persuasion. For every step into the public current a candidate loses a bit of his or her individual self. The most successful politician will not be the one who maximizes individuality, but who bends that individuality to meet the broad concerns of the time.

Why this comment? It points to the way in which success is a dream.. and when it does come it is not the private self that is responsible.. but the willingness to align that self with a broader current. That is a dynamic that is true not only in politics, but in many areas of endeavor. Those are all ultimately traps.. all those paths to achievement.

These lines from the Psalms, with their reminder of life's brevity, are hardly impious or radical. As with everything in the Psalms, they are consonant with what we might call a religious life. But that is a religious life that is quite different than what we commonly imagine: aimed as we are from birth at various sorts of immortalities.

What would it look like to recognize how fleeting are our days? It would turn us away from standards of achievement and cause us to focus on doing what we love for its own sake. Writing, for example, would not be for any kind of greatness, but for personal enjoyment. What we love to do should not be about accomplishing, but about experiencing.. because soon we are gone.. and whether it be in ten years or ten thousand years, before long nothing about us will matter to anyone.