Beauty in a Postmodern World

Occasionally lighting strikes and the whole forest is burned. The light from the sun shines down on the burnt earth. Out of the ashes new life springs forth and the forest recreates itself in a beautiful new fashion. This new forest is not perfect. In fact it has as many flaws as the previous stagnant forest that needed burning in order for new life to arise. But it is the light of the sun that reveals all that is glorious in the new forest. It was the sun that allowed the appropriate weather systems necessary for lighting to strike. One day this new forest will to become stagnant and need to be burned. All the forests old, new, and yet to come only experience life and grow in the light of the never ceasing sun. 

Commentary
Of course humanity won't get it all right this time. The 'new' postmodern argument is as infinitely circular and lives in a world as finitely small as the last. It should be understood and held as lightly as the modern.

Ecclesiastes 1: 13-14......I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! ¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 

I like these verses because they exclude everything under the sun from meaning. The only thing not excluded from meaning is the sun itself. But to stare into the sun itself is to cause blindness and utter confusion. Its power can not be comprehended by the naked eye. Yet it is so humble. It shares its light so the everything under it which is meaningless can experience meaning.

Meaning is not found in proof of the empirical. Significance is something you experience. It is so subjective. To experience meaning is to benefit from the light. Meaning is not found in our understanding of the world but in our experience of the light.

It is in this present forest that we experience life. And it is the sun that gives us light to enjoy, interpret, and understand the forest. Why would we spend time complaining that the old forest was better when the light makes it possible to experience the new forest around us? Whatever the forest we tend to spend a lot of time proving it's existence rather than living in the light.