TITLE:
Signals of Transcendence - Listening to the Promptings of Life
AUTHOR: Os Guinness
PUBLISHER: Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2023, (132 pages).
How do people find faith in God? What led them to recognize the divine presence in their lives? Why do people believe in God? Respected author Os Guinness tells us that it all boils down to positive responses toward divine promptings. These promptings come in many different forms. A lot of us might be expecting amazing signs and wonders happening in the terrestrial heavens or the skies above. Truth is, things often happen amid the ordinary circumstances of life. Sometimes, it occurs in periods of immense crises. "There must be something more to life as we know it." This is the basic question to gear one up toward anticipation of something bigger than ourselves. As people become more inward-looking, society is in need of people to have an outward-looking mindset. Lest we become a nation of self-loving, self-indulgent, and self-centered people. Ironically, the first step toward being more other-centered is the right perspective of oneself. The fundamental questions asked by Guinness all revolve around self-awareness and self-discovery: "Who am I? Why am I here? What is life all about?" I believe everybody asks one or more of these questions from time to time. If not, they would have been prompted in some ways, in what the author entitles, "signals of transcendence." For the Irish, these are "thin places."
For students, questions can be gateways to answers. For readers, this book provides us a glimpse into the lives of ten famous individuals who had taken the leap of faith from unbelievers to believers. Malcolm Muggeridge, the popular English author who was often credited for making Mother Teresa famous, converted to Christianity after he "rediscovered Jesus." It was his deep search for home that led him to Christ. Austrian-born theologian, Peter Berger honors all mothers by recognizing their impact on their children. Mothers bring us into this world. Thus, in every child, there is a deep need for motherly assurance or reassurance. This need itself constitutes a "signal of transcendence." British-American poet, Wystan H Auden's signal comes in the form of the horrors of World War II. In a world where truth claims are increasingly relativized, Auden realized that the need for absolutes is deeply ingrained. Just like we need to call a spade a spade, the presence of evil means we need to call out evil as what it is, otherwise law and order in society will crumble. Like Auden, scholar Philip Hailie also grappled with the presence of evil in his quest for meaning in life. Pain and suffering from the Holocaust form part of the cultural identification as a Jew. His moment of divine awareness comes via a small town (Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in South-Central France) that practiced non-violent resistance against the Nazi regime. Instead of drowning in the multitudes of evil in this world, he finds hope in the smacks of goodness that defies evil. Just like the Talmudic saying, "Whoever saves a life is as one who has saved an entire world," Hailie was saved by his encounter with the goodness of the people in this town, which eventually led him to God. Renowned author G.K. Chesterton came to faith because of the humble dandelion. After living in a prolonged state of pessimism, Chesterton's life was changed because of "sheer beauty, the simple words of existence, gratitude for the gift of life." Popular Christian author C.S. Lewis also has that moment of transcendence that moved him from atheism to the Christian faith. His divine trigger? "Surprised by Joy." He even wrote a book by that title. Lewis who once called himself "the hardest-boiled atheist" was inspired by GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" which demonstrates the uniqueness of Christ in the redemption of the world. Windsor Elliot is a fashion model whose adventure was less about the glamour of the fashion world and more about the questions of life. Not satisfied with the alternatives offered by New Age Spirituality or legalistic religion, she rises above the fake images of fashion, to respond to the promptings of transcendence. Her memoir "Faces" looks at the three faces of our lives: the faces we were born with, the faces that we try to make, and the faces that we eventually grow into. It was the latter that drives her search for meaning and the need to form good inner character. How we become is more important than the other two faces. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy is best known for his classic novels like "War and Peace," and "Anna Karenina." His search for life's meaning took a dramatic turn when he read Pascal's apologetic treatise, "
Pensées." Spurred by a keen awareness of "life is short and death is certain," his writings soon deal more with faith matters. Guinness also writes about his Irish grandfather, Whitfield Guinness. Whitfield was a missionary to China during the tumultuous Boxer rebellion period. He met his wife, Jane who was a Swedish missionary also to China. Miraculously, they escaped the persecution and found love. Love was their signal of transcendence. The last character is British historian, Kenneth Clark. Clark is one who protected his privacy well, so well that not many people actually know him or his thoughts. The main way to understand him is through his writings, where he shares his religious experience in the church of San Lorenzo. For Clark, beauty is the key signal to transcendence.
My Thoughts
Guinness has put together ten stories of individuals from different walks of life. All of them have one thing in common: An awareness of a calling bigger than themselves to a God that is beyond what this world can offer. Resembling mini-biographies, Guinness is able to view their lives from the perspective of faith in a world gone mad. These people are busy people with their respective work, jobs, careers, and businesses. Instead of getting swallowed up by the activities, they responded to the promptings along the journey of life, and eventually found faith in God. It is not good to be stuck in our busy ways without paying attention to the signals of life. We need to pause and pay attention. It is not enough to simply pay attention by hearing the prompts. We need to respond. It is not enough to simply respond, we need to turn in the right direction. Sometimes, I feel that people want big answers to the big questions of life. According to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, life is meant to be lived forward but understood backward. Whether through music, history, phenomena, or some current events, we can try to ignore these signals but we risk missing out on insights beyond our comfort zones.
I applaud Guinness for the way he summarizes the lives of these ten eminent characters and shows us that we all can learn from their experiences. God does not touch only the lives of the rich and the famous. He calls us all to Him. Whether it is the beauty of creation, an escape from danger, a "finger of God," or the face of the future, the way forward begins not with the first step but with the first prompting. If we are honest with ourselves, God will always try to prompt us with signs and gentle whispers. We need to be open. We need to listen well. We need to respond positively. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we can experience our very own "signals of transcendence" and will live to write or share about it.
Os Guinness (DPhil, Oxford) is the author or editor of more than thirty books, including The Dust of Death, The Call, Fool's Talk, Last Call for Liberty, and The Great Quest.
A frequent speaker and prominent social critic, he has a lifelong
passion to make sense of our extraordinary modern world and stand
between the worlds of scholarship and ordinary life, helping each to
understand the other. He lives with his wife, Jenny, in the Washington,
DC, area.
Rating: 4.75 stars of 5.
conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of InterVarsity Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.
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