Immortality

I've continued reading Anton Chekov's short stories and am currently reading "Ward No. 6." And, as I have been doing in past posts, I here continue lifting relevant quotes, decontextualizing them, and considering them in the theological and existential light of today. This habit, or devotion, extends from the odd prevalence in Chekov's stories of a religious and overtly Christian context. In most of his stories Christianity, its rituals and festivals, and its persons play a central role. For instance, the festivals tell us the time of year and explain the activities of the people in our stories. His stories present us with a unique view of what life was like when kairos (special time) held more sway in our lives than chronos (watches). This quote comes out of that foreign world and I consider it an intriguing and challenging description of immortality that can be gainfully considered in secret conversation with eternal life as we know it. As usual, I have hidden the context, but enjoy the passage, and the promise.

The doctor's coarse peasant-like face was gradually lighted up by a smile of delight and enthusiasm over the progress of the human intellect. Oh, why is not man immortal? he thought. What is the good of the brain centres and convolutions, what is the good of sight, speech, self-consciousness, genius, if it is all destined to depart into the soil, and in the end to grow cold together with the earth's crust, and then for millions of years to fly with the earth round the sun with no meaning and no object? To do that there was no need at all to draw man with his lofty, almost godlike intellect out of non-existence, and then, as though in mockery, to turn him into clay. The transmutation of substances! But what cowardice to comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for immortality!