PARA/ INQUIRY Postmodern Religion and Culture Victor E ... - IMIC

AUTHENTICITYThe Sphinx has symbolized the possibility not only of authentic individual existence throughthe transmission of pure knowledge in myth and literature across the ages, but the possibilityof authentic communal existence. Sophocles’s Œdipus, for instance, must conquer the Sphinxby solving its riddle before he is able to establish himself as a man of knowledge and the rulerof Thebes. Just as in the ancient myths in which the Sphinx symbolizes both chaos and order,so does it serve us today. In his 1967 novella The Beggar, the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouzintroduces us to Omar, a dissolute man who attempts to soothe a festering existential woundby regularly returning to the Sphinx and the pyramids after nights of heavy drinking, to haveillicit sex with dancers. Ultimately, he seeks intercourse of another kind – a communion withan ancient past that is represented by the Sphinx. He experiences a profound loss of meaningin his individual existence, and in the existence of his community as well. He is, in manyrespects, a postmodern man betrayed by his own desires for reconciliation within atranscendent order. He asks, despairingly: “If you really wanted me, why did you desert me?” 2The overwhelming question for Omar is: What does the secret hold? The ancient past seemsto withhold the remedy for the corruption found in everyday life. Omar’s Sphinx and pyramidstaunt him and his community with their unrelenting silence:The desert sands, clothed in darkness, hid the whispers, as numberless as the grains, of pastgenerations – their hopes, their suffering, and all their last questions. There is no pain without acause, something told him, and somewhere this enchanted, ephemeral moment will endure.33Here, I am beseeching the silence to utter, for if that happened, all would change. If only thesands would loosen their hidden powers, and liberate me from this oppressive impotence. 3The sacrality of life that is symbolically expressed in Omar’s marriage, his children, his loveof poetry, is substituted with illicit sexual encounters, business deals, and an obsession withfailing health. Omar consistently substitutes what supposedly is sacred in his life with whatis profane. He seeks ultimacy and meaning in decadence:He felt the glances of the other women who’d gone with him, night after night. As Wardasmiled, he muttered, “I didn’t desire them.”She raised her eyebrows.“I knew them all, without exception, but there was never any desire.”“Then why?”“Hoping the divine moment would unlock the answer.”She said resentfully, “How cruel you were. You men don’t believe in love unless we disbelievein it.”“Perhaps, but that’s not my problem.”The scent of orange blossoms drifting from the dark fields suggested secret worlds ofdelight. Feeling suddenly light and unfettered, he asked fervently, “Tell me Warda, why do youlive?”She shrugged her shoulders and finished her drink, but when he repeated the question, hewas so clearly in earnest that she replied, “Does that question have any meaning?” 4