{"id":1998,"date":"2022-09-26T09:55:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T13:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2022-09-26T09:55:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T13:55:29","slug":"the-quest-for-the-holy-grail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/26\/the-quest-for-the-holy-grail\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quest for the Holy Grail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.

King Arthur is alive and well.

That\u2019s good news for someone who reigned in England some 1500 years ago, and whose very existence is questioned by numerous medieval scholars.\u00a0

With the passing of time, an astonishing number of legendary stories have become attached to his name.\u00a0 Purdue professor Dorsey Armstrong, an Arthurian scholar, likens the famous king to a vacuum that sweeps up and incorporates tales from other cultures, transforming them in the process.\u00a0 Lancelot, Galahad, Excalibur (the sword in the stone), and Merlin the magician weren\u2019t part of the original accounts, but gradually entered the Camelot narrative via creative storytelling in France, Germany, and Scandinavia.\u00a0

Today there is a veritable industry of Arthurian lore.\u00a0 Since 1980, at least 5,000 new Arthur-themed books, films, articles and memorabilia have hit the market every year<\/em>.\u00a0 You can buy Excaliburgers, Barbie and Ken dressed as Arthur and Guinevere, Camelot wallpaper, and cutting-edge comic book adventures of the knights of the round table.

Then there\u2019s that most iconic of all Arthurian pursuits, the quest for the Holy Grail.

No consensus has ever emerged as to the Grail\u2019s actual identity.\u00a0 It is usually imagined to be a cup or a serving dish.\u00a0 One tradition says that Arthur and his knights hoped to find the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper.\u00a0 Another declares the Grail to be the vessel that Joseph of Arimathea used to catch the blood of Christ at the foot of the cross.\u00a0 Still others believe it was a stone that fell from heaven.\u00a0 Dan Brown\u2019s bestseller The Da Vinci Code<\/em> proposes that the Holy Grail is a person \u2013 a physical descendant of Jesus himself.

Where can the Grail be found?\u00a0 In Europe, perhaps, or somewhere in the Middle East.\u00a0 Some say it\u2019s hidden in Britain, right where Joseph of Arimathea left it.

What power is it supposed to have?\u00a0 One tradition, on display in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<\/em>, suggests that the Grail can heal all wounds and impart the gift of eternal life.\u00a0 Or it will meet every need of the one fortunate enough to drink from it or bestow the ultimate mystical experience of the Divine.\u00a0

Scientists speak of the Holy Grail of physics \u2013 finding a way to unite quantum mechanics with Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity.\u00a0 The Holy Grail of cancer research is targeted therapy that will snuff out every malignancy without snuffing out any patients.\u00a0 The Holy Grail of Purdue\u2019s football program is \u2013 well, let\u2019s just say it usually comes down to the words, \u201cThere\u2019s always next year.\u201d

The Arthurian legacy of the Grail is the notion of the quest \u2013 the search for something worth finding, something worth understanding \u2013 a lifelong pursuit that yields surprises and adventures along the way.

Is there a quest that is part and parcel of every human life?

Most would agree it\u2019s the search for the meaning of life itself.\u00a0

A London cabbie once asked British philosopher and arch-atheist Bertrand Russell for his take on the meaning of life.\u00a0 What\u2019s it all about, Bertie?<\/em>\u00a0 Russell was uncharacteristically speechless.\u00a0 \u201cOnly precise questions deserve precise answers,\u201d he said.

Harvard philosopher William Van Orman Quine, when asked the same question, replied, \u201cLife is agid, life is fulgid.\u00a0 Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of.\u00a0 Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time.\u201d\u00a0 No one is really quite sure what he was talking about.

For literary critic Terry Eagleton, the meaning of life is \u201ca subject fit for either the crazed or the comic.\u201d\u00a0 For the comedians known as Monty Python \u2013 whose classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/em> is Dorsey Armstrong’s all-time favorite Arthurian movie \u2013 life is nothing but a joke.\u00a0 According to Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em>, the fictional computer Deep Thought took seven-and-a-half million years to discern that the most important answer in the cosmos is \u201c42.\u201d\u00a0 Now it will take a bigger computer to come up with the right question.\u00a0

The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus famously began his book The Myth of Sisyphus<\/em> by stating, \u201cThere is but one serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.\u201d\u00a0 Since the meaning of life is not self-evident, should I or should I not put an end to my own existence?\u00a0 That is the only question worth considering.\u00a0

If human beings can agree on anything, it\u2019s that the meaning of life truly matters.\u00a0 Cultural critic Os Guinness acknowledges that we cannot answer three vital questions \u2013 what is happiness, what is success, and why should we care for our neighbors? \u2013 unless we have some sense of why we are here.\u00a0

Unsurprisingly, the Bible is not silent on this issue.

Here\u2019s a key text from the Old Testament: \u201c[God says] This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.\u00a0 Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.\u00a0 For the Lord is your life<\/em>\u2026\u201d (Deuteronomy 30:19-20, emphasis added).\u00a0

And here\u2019s a key text from the New Testament:\u00a0 \u201c[Jesus said] I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly\u201d (John 10:10).\u00a0

The meaning of life, according to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, is to know, love, and serve the one true God, so that we may know, love, and serve one another.\u00a0

According to the Arthurian narrative, these Latin words were carved on his gravestone: Rex quondam, Rexque futurus<\/em> \u2013 \u201cthe once and future king.\u201d\u00a0 It is an expression of profound hope.\u00a0 The valiant king who delivered his people in the past will return in their hour of greatest need.\u00a0

That\u2019s merely legend.\u00a0 A wistful story.\u00a0

But Christ-followers believe that there really is a once and future king. \u00a0His name is Jesus.\u00a0 Having come to his people to die for their sins, he will come once again to set the whole world right.\u00a0

In the meantime, our quest is to know him and make him known.

That\u2019s the true Holy Grail.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here. King Arthur is alive and well. That\u2019s good news for someone who reigned in England some 1500 years ago, and whose very existence is questioned by numerous medieval scholars.\u00a0 With the passing of time, an astonishing number of legendary stories have become attached to his name.\u00a0 Purdue professor Dorsey Armstrong, an… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[232],"class_list":["post-1998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-meaning-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions\/2000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}