MORE CAMUS TO HOWARD MUMMA

Albert, I congratulate you for this. I encourage you to keep searching for a meaning in something that will fill the void and transform your life. Then you will arrive in living waters where you will find meaning and purpose."

"Well, Howard, you have to agree that in a sense we are all products of the mundane world, a world without spirit. The world in which we live and the lives which we live decidedly empty."

"It does often seem that way," I conceded.

"Since I have been coming to church, I have been thinking a great deal about the idea of a transcendent, something that is other than this world. It is something that you do not hear much about today but I am finding it. I'm hearing about it here, in Paris, within the walls of the American church."

"After all, one of the basic teachings that I learned from Sartre is that man is alone. We are solitary centers of the universe. Perhaps we ourselves are the only ones who have ever asked the great questions of life. Perhaps, since Nazism we are also the ones who have loved and lost and who are therefore fearful of life. That is what led us to sense that there is something -- I don't know if it is personal or if it is a great idea or powerful influence -- but there is something that can bring meaning to my life. I certainly don't have it but it is there. On Sunday mornings, I hear that the answer is God."

"You have made it very clear to me, Howard, that we are not the only ones in this world. There is something that is invisible. We may not hear the voice, but there is some way in which we can become aware that we are not the only ones in the world and that there is help for all of us."

Camus leaned forward and until his elbows both rested on his knees and said, "In the Bible, I read about people who were not at all self-confident. Men who did not feel as if they had the world by its tail, or that they had all the answers. Fact is, one of the things that I noted in the Bible that many of its chief characters were confused -- just like the rest of us. We are on a pilgrimage. We are all seeking something, whether it is confidence or knowledge or something else entirely. I have read Old Testament at least three times and I have made many notes on it. In its pages I have found some people who were absolutely confused about life and what they should do and what God wanted them to do."

"There is Jonah, a guy who stood up and refused God. He didn't want to go to Nineveh! He didn't understand what it was all about. He felt that there was no chance for Ninevites to be redeemed and that God was mistaken. Then there was Moses. God wanted him to go to Egypt for his people but Moses complained that he stuttered. He couldn't speak well and therefore no one would believe him. And then there was Isaiah. I have read Isaiah a number of times. When God wanted him -- in the sixth chapter I think -- to go and work for him, Isaiah said,' You have the wrong man! I am not worthy, I am a man of unclean lips!' So even these great men were confused."