The argument between science and spirit is an old one. In writers’ group we analyzed E.M.Forster’s short story The Other Side of the Hedge where a man strides a dusty road toward an unknown goal. He tires of the effort and monotony of his journey, sits down, and feels the breath of fresh air blowing gently through a hedge alongside the road. Curious, he crawls through the hedge and discovers what we might call a parallel universe (and some would call Eden or heaven) on the other side where time stands still and people live joyfully in the moment. Perplexed, he says:

Give me life with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds, with its deep moral meaning and its unknown goal.

Our conversation focused on the degree to which striving makes us human. We acknowledged that an unknown end discourages us; I would add especially as we get closer to it.

This conversation dished up the main course of my weekend, but a side dish enhanced the meal—a photograph in the Wall Street Journal of an old man running on a track. The caption read: Working harder than ever…for what?” In the article, philosopher and author Daniel Klein asked his mid-70s self, “is now the time to step back, let go of my ambitions, reflect and just live?” He ruminates that if he does not use this period of his life to cease striving he might miss “sublime pleasures [that] are uniquely available in old age.”

I polished off this rumination with dessert, The Sierra Repertory Theatre’s production of Time Stand Still. In Donald Margulies play, two war correspondents return home to Brooklyn and try to adjust to a quieter life. Without the intensity of war one of them can’t do it. She returns to the war zone. I understood how cramped she felt in a dreary apartment in Brooklyn; still, it was a sad moment when she walked out the door to return to her old life. Opportunities abounded if she were willing to examine the pain of her own condition. By continuing to focus her lens on the pain of others, she bathed her anguish in adrenalin. The war wounds that scarred her body faded, but the wound that scorches her soul—the knowledge that her motives are not pure—will fester.

Now for the aperitif; in my morning reading In James 1:2-4 we are told to consider it joy when we meet trials. Trials test our faith and produce steadfastness that, in its full effect, makes us perfect, complete, lacking in nothing. That’s strong drink. Perhaps that’s why the beverage that Forster’s traveler wrenched from the hand of the passerby was a bitter brew that finally brought him peace.