Metaphysical questions

In Why Religion? A Personal Story, Elaine Pagels shares her lifelong draw to what may be called the sacredness of life. Without sermonizing, she asks if leaving out the spiritual in the human misses our range of capacities to discover the unknown, to feel joy in music and art, create quiet, make suffering sufferable. By embedding religious practices within social and political history (e.g., explaining how Christianity may have honored martyrdom to persevere), she emphasizes strategic interpretations, borrowings, suppressions. Her take is modern: She encourages 21st century middle ground inventions.

This, from the Gospel of Thomas, she highlights: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”