THE TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE

Today, July 27, is the feast of Mary Magdalene, who certainly is a good patron saint for people who have to deal with tragedy in their life. I think itś appropriate, then, to share some of my recent reading from Richard Rohr in Falling Upward. Here are his thoughts on the Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno. I have broken the passage into shorter paragraphs. 

The exact phrase “the tragic sense of life“ was first popularized in the early 20th century by the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, who courageously told his European world that they had distorted the meaning of faith by aligning it with the western philosophy of “progress“ rather than with what he saw as rather evident in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Jesus and the Jewish prophets were fully at home with the tragic sense of life, and it made the shape and nature of reality very different for them, for Unamuno, and maybe still for us. 

By this clear and honest phrase, I understand Unamuno to mean that life is not, nor ever has been, a straight line forward. According to him, life is characterized much more by exception and disorder, than by total or perfect order. Life, as the biblical tradition makes clear, is both loss and renewal, death and resurrection, chaos, and healing at the same time; life seems to be a coalition of opposites.

Unamuno equates the notion of faith with trust in an underlying life force so strong that it even includes death. Faith also includes reason, but is a larger category than reason for Unamuno. Truth is not always about pragmatic problem-solving and making things “work,“ but about reconciling contradictions. Just because something might have some dire effects does not mean it is not true, or even good. Just because something pleases people does not make it true either.

Life is inherently, tragic, and that is the truth, that only faith, but not our seeming logic, can accept. This is my amateur and very partial summary of the thought of this great Spanish philosopher. (Falling Upward, 54)

We Christians, are, of course, supposed to be well aware of how this tragic sense of life becomes real in the Easter Mystery; but we can use a lot of help when it comes to accepting it without understanding it.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us!