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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who served on the Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932, is one of the most highly regarded justices in American history.
Cool, detached, and a strong advocate of judicial restraint, he was also a convinced secularist.
Holmes was certain that this world is all we’ve got. He put no stock in angels, demons, gods, or any kind of Meaning beyond what we ourselves choose to create.
He was also honest enough to admit that this was not an ideal formula for personal comfort.
He once wrote to a friend that there is “no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand.” Our lives, in the end, have no special meaning. He went on to add that when he really starts thinking about that, it was time to “go downstairs and play solitaire.”
Even the brightest minds aren’t afraid to admit they sometimes need strategies to stop thinking, especially if life is a riddle with no real answer.
The late philosopher Thomas Nagel, who shared Holmes’ convictions, wrote:
“Even if you produce a great work of literature which continues to be read thousands of years from now, eventually the solar system will cool or the universe will wind down and collapse and all trace of your effort will vanish… It wouldn’t matter if you had never existed. And after you [are gone] it won’t matter that you did exist.”
Nagel, we presume, didn’t sit by the phone waiting for invitations to give motivational speeches.
What’s interesting is that the Bible’s authors don’t rush in, wring their hands, and shout, “No, you mustn’t think like that!”
They quite agree with Holmes and Nagel.
If there’s no inherent meaning to life, and no future beyond the grave, then it’s party time. Or at least solitaire time. “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” That famous phrase comes from three places in Scripture: Ecclesiastes 8:15, Isaiah 22:13, and I Corinthians 15:32.
Over the past century we have witnessed the rise of entire “distraction industries.” Vast sums of time and money have been invested in keeping our minds on something other than the reality of an invisible world.
I’m a genuinely enthusiastic sports fan. But even though the fortunes of our favorite teams may feel like life and death, they have very little to do with actual living and dying.
Last week the National Football League released its schedule for the upcoming fall season. Sports talk media and the internet descended, as always, into endless analysis. Who got a great draw? Which teams were disrespected? Which game do we simply have to see in November?
Should anyone really care?
The gaming industry markets itself as introducing excitement into sporting events that are apparently not already exciting enough. Now you can place a bet on a pinch hitter coming to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and wonder if you’re about to blow your kids’ college fund.
I must admit: There is indeed an element of excitement associated with that.
TV ads beckon us to sign up for life-transforming cruises, child-delighting adventures in theme parks, and romance-kickstarting visits to Caribbean islands.
In the fashion world, all eyes have been fixed this spring on the Met Gala and the Cannes film festival. Who wore what? Who looked elegant, who looked frumpy, and who looked completely ridiculous? In a world in which millions of girls will wear the same clothes today that they have been wearing every day for the past six months, because there’s nothing else in their wardrobe, these questions truly do not matter.
It’s a wonderful thing to squeeze sports, travel, fashion, and fun into our lives. But such things must not become life itself.
When Paul recites “eat, drink, and be merry” in I Corinthians 15:32, he includes an important caveat:
If there’s nothing waiting for us after our heartbeats go flat; if every one of our love relationships terminates in a cemetery; if all of our accomplishments are forgotten within a generation (and probably far sooner), then it frankly doesn’t matter one bit what you choose to do or not do today.
But if the cosmos is ruled by a good and beautiful God, then we don’t have to dull our minds through myriad distractions.
So stay alert. And stay awake.
Life is too beautiful and full of wonder to squander our time on binge-watching, Super Bowls, and solitaire.