7 – 26 – 17 “We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”

“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”

That was my senior quote, it’s from CS Lewis but I’ve had much trouble figuring out the book.

I want to explore several aspects of this idea. Firstly, our destiny. Secondly, our creation. And third, the secular way in which this is true. I think I will explore the secular version first as it seems the least obvious and powerful to me.

Simply by virtue of living in a causal universe, no two people are precisely alike. The only reason we use twin studies is because they are the most alike groups, but even they have marked differences. And usually examining those marked differences is the purpose of the study.

If one believes in a single universe, then there is exactly one of everyone. Everyone is utterly, inescapably, and completely distinct as a human being simply because of the physical facts of the matter. You will struggle to meet someone born on the same day in the same hospital as you, unless obviously you are twins. You will struggle further to find someone with the same name who fulfills the previous criteria, I certainly hope if you’re a twin you have different names. The bottom-line is that there is some criteria which you meet that no one else meets, you are undeniably unique.

So why do we care? We may be distinct, but just barely.

Because every difference in our lives and the choices we have made will generate and expose us to different experiences. It is from experience that we gain wisdom. Hence, everyone who has had unique experiences has some unique wisdom they may share with others. We are all slightly different instruments, tuned differently, sent to different places, we need all the data we can get if we hope to know as much as we can about life and the universe. I mean this in both the physical/scientific way as well as the religious/philosophic. Many people have possessed the genius of Darwin, but as a result of his unique experiences and personality he is the one to have proposed the theory.

So if we care about knowing things, any things, we must listen to other people, all other people, regardless of how wise they seem. We should care about their experiences even for the simple, selfish reason that learning from them will better equip us to face the challenges in our own lives.

It is hard for me to disentangle my other two points but I fear combining them will lead to a very verbose and meaningless web of words. So I’ll take the “chronological” – not that time restricts God but that this is the view we have of the experience – standard and treat our creation, then our destiny.

Our creation adds something critical to the secular view, not only are we unique by happenstance, but that we are created unique. Our design is not insulated from duplication by entropy, but by divine will. God speaks of how he knew us “before we were in our mother’s womb.” How we are eternal, being named long before our grandparents were born, and born to live forever.

It is easy to see how the fact that something is designed is quite different from saying that thing happened. In the secular view we happened, it is an accident of causation not only that we are unique, but that we are who we are. In the creation view we are designed, intended in every aspect to be what we are, and not anything or anyone else. But I think there is another distinction that may be more pertinent, we are known when we are created.

If a tree falls in the forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I’d say yes, based on physics and the nature of the physical universe, but if we are not created there is no one to hear it. What is the significance of a sound except in being heard? Do any creatures simply bellow into the sky, with no message for anyone else, no benefit for themselves, no physiological urging to do so?

But in being created we are known, we are acknowledged for what we are. In the secular view one can go their whole life without being known if they distance themselves from friends and lovers, in the created view we have an inherent relationship built into us. Part of our identity and the root of our existence is our relation to our creator and our obligation to him.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

We cannot be ordinary because God has not made us that way, he did not intend to. He has created us to be his sons and daughters when we finally learn to be. We are as much more than our bodies as the car is than the lug nuts on its wheels. Anytime you see someone who seems merely ordinary, consider the eternal life, the infinite power, and the unending and undying love burning inside them.

A third way to see how no people are ordinary is their destiny. We, all of us, shall at the end of time be either demons or saints. We will either go to Heaven and be exalted above that which this world could contain or we shall lose even our humanity in the descent to the state where what we consider depravity is a great release.

I ask you to not attempt to judge which a person shall become, because not even God is guessing at that yet and he is a fair bit wiser than you. Always be considering the possibility that the person you’re waiting behind in traffic could one day rise to be as powerful as the Angel Gabriel if they serve the Lord wholeheartedly. Always keep in mind that you will, hopefully at least, meet again the man you cut in line, and it will be as when old rivals past the age of quarreling recount the injuries they laid upon each other in their youth, only your degree of separation, and therefore your embarrassment, should be much greater.

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Some of the ideas in this passage, particularly the one about us all being different instruments, were pivotal in motivating me to share my thoughts and start this blog.