When the Homily is about Immunology

Some Great Good "Thing"...some further explanation

To quell any fears that I have gone off the deep end or had some 900 foot Jesus experience I feel obliged to offer a few additional words on this "experience" lest you think I am claiming some unusually profound mystical experience with the Divine. Alas, I have not seen the uncreated light of God.

The first time I sensed Some Great Good Thing was in high school while reading A Tale of Two Cities. The beautiful act of self-sacrifice described in this classic work really struck me and warred against my atheistic worldview which I recognized as demanding a personal philosophy of intelligently acted out hedonism. Why should I be moved by what was in essence suicide, when in truth it should inspire nothing more in me than pity for the stupidity of it all. Somewhere...I cannot say for certain where (my heart, my head, surrounding me?) I sensed that Some Great Good thing seemed to "speak" to me, telling me about real beauty, real nobility, real truth - TRANSCEDENT truth. To some extent it was the intellectual realization that there IS something more out there! There was no trance, no cold sweat, no blackouts, no waking back up into reality. Just the sudden connection of what I feel (e.g. that the sacrifice of Sydney Carton was WORTHY) to a reality that was obscured or darkened...now suddenly illumined. YES! It is truly worthy!

In the end it left my worldview spinning and to no small extent in shards. This same sense of Some Great Good Thing still visits me from time to time, and it is this "experience" which I am trying to communicate. It is like a sudden burst of emotion within you that seems to cry out: "THERE MUST BE MORE TO THIS SAD LIFE?" and then there is a subtle reply: "yes...truth, beauty, love, sacrifice, selflessness, God. Therein is found REAL LIFE."

Perhaps the sense is unique to recovering atheists who need ever to be reminded why they have embraced Theism? I do not see it as some great miracle or sign...for all I know it may be only be my imagination (certainly my "beloved Atheist" would affirm this)...but perhaps, as I inferred before, Some Great Good Thing is in truth a Great Good Someone?