The Most Human Art

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In the beginning, we say, at the end of time, we say, but we are only guessing. 'I think one should work into a story the idea of not being sure of all things,' Borges advised, 'because that's the way reality is.' The magic and romance, the devils and divinities we imagine, are pale tokens of the forces at play around us. The elegant, infinite details of the world's unfolding, the sheer existence of hand or tree or star, are more marvelous than anything we can say about them.

A number of modern physicists have suggested that the more we learn about the universe, the more it seems like an immense, sustained, infinitely subtle flow of consciousness -- the more it seems, in fact, like a grand story, lavishly imagined and set moving. In scriptures we speak of God's thoughts as if we could read them; but we read only by the dim light of a tricky brain on a young planet near a middling star. Nonetheless, we need these cosmic narratives, however imperfect they may be, however filled with guesswork. So long as they remain open to new vision, so long as they are filled with awe, they give us hope of finding meaning within the great mystery.

Cover Story section, September/October 1997.

Reprinted with permission from The Georgia Review, Spring 1997

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