What's the Meaning of Illinois?

Thoughts on the theology of history

One of the great pastimes of all Illinoisans is the mockery of our state. Despite literally bordering a state named misery (or something like that) we are all well aware that we might be the worst state, the proverbial “black eye” of the Midwest. This is at least the pastime of all downstaters; I can’t say for sure what those north of I-80 do with their free time after they’re done sucking the life out of our communities and injecting their ideologies into our schools. Still, as my wife and I returned home from our honeymoon in Europe this past summer, I was moved by the landscape of our native state. We flew into O’Hare in Chicago and rode the train down to Alton, giving us five or so hours to enjoy the scenes of central Illinois. After being away for the better part of a month, the openness of the former prairie mixed with the near endlessness of cornfields was almost stunning. It was a moment of genuine love towards my home, no matter how much I might enjoy abusing her for her faults.

The feeling reminded me of a scene in Chesterton’s novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill. In the novel’s setting, ostensibly in the future although effectively set in Chesterton’s present, a group of well-to-do Englishmen encounter the president of the conquered nation of Nicaragua. The president takes a piece of yellow paper and a bloody rag and pins them to his shirt because they are the colors of Nicaragua. He goes on to explain

"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed like Jerusalem," cried the old man, with amazing fire. "The Yankee and the German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the hoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea."

Auberon Quin suggested timidly, "A brilliant idea."

"Yes," said the foreigner, snatching at the word. "You are right, generous Englishman. An idea brillant, a burning thought. Señor, you asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, I snatched at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancient sanctity of colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think of what colours mean to us—think of the position of one like myself, who can see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and the yellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are in a democracy of combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds and the red cloak of an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a field of poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my country. Wherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heart beats. Blood and a splash of mustard can be my heraldry. If there be yellow mud and red mud in the same ditch, it is better to me than white stars."

The aged president has the gall to believe something that few moderns are willing to entertain. The nation, even the small nation, is ultimately meaningful. Not just subjectively meaningful, but meaningful even if the whole world should think it to be meaningless. This theme is carried through the rest of the book, especially through the protagonist, Adam Wayne. Wayne takes this idea to its logical extreme, declaring that even the small borough of Notting Hill is something meaningful enough to even die for.

This question of meaning is one I wrestle with frequently. What is the meaning of secular history? More importantly, what is the meaning of the nations found within secular history? Do they matter? Do they mean something in God’s grand plan?

It seems easy enough for a Christian to believe that individual lives have meaning. We all perceive our lives as a sort of story or narrative, and the Christian makes sense of this narrative within the context of the greater story of God. There’s scriptural backing to this as well. Go and read Genesis 12-50 if you don’t believe me; God’s Providence in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph is there on full display. The witness of the Saints points towards the same fact, our lives are guided by God for some purpose. We might never know this purpose on this side of the pale, but God did not create us for nothing.

The Biblical storyline also points towards the fact that there is a narrative to all of creation, that “universal history” is inherently meaningful and leads to the heavenly Jerusalem. So if the lives of individuals are meaningful and the history of the whole Cosmos is saturated with meaning, we return to the previous question - what about the nations? Do they have some sort of part to play in the grand narrative of creation and salvation? Can the nation, even the small nation, actually mean something?

The history I studied in college, and even the history I teach out of the textbook, seem to imply that the answer is “not really.” In fact, as we tend to understand history as a sort of police transcript of causally-linked events that have happened in the past, the question itself seems quite absurd. Historical events, since they don’t signify anything, can’t mean anything. The same would go for historical entities such as nations and communities. All of history on this view can be explained through material, usually economic, causes with no room left for things like objective meaning. Historical narratives, by extension, can only be useful as models. There can’t be an end goal of history. To quote the great prophet, the years simply “start coming and they don’t stop coming” until the heat death of the universe.

Meanwhile, my Faith seems to emphatically tell me “yes, it’s all meaningful.” It wasn’t for nothing that the sacred authors described God’s creation of the universe as an act of speech or Christ as the Logos. The seraphic doctor tells us that everything is a little word of God, revealing something about Him. Creation, then, is inherently meaningful. The story of Israel, from Abraham down to Christ, shows us that both Israel and seemingly all the nations have a place in God’s providence. God didn’t create them for nothing. Through Christ’s Church, the tree under which all the nations of the earth find shade and rest, the story of Israel and her salvation has been extended to all the world.

Herein lies the problem, I believe. Insofar as history is secular, it is meaningless. Empires rise and fall, communities come to power and descend back into obscurity, and there is nothing new under the sun. The apparent meaninglessness in history is the reason why most pagans view the world as eternal, without beginning or end. There can’t be such a thing as progress in secular history, because there isn’t a goal to measure “progress” against. Perhaps the trappings of history change, but ultimately secular history is the same boring story played out ad nauseum.

However, this raises a challenge for secular historiography. How can the meaninglessness of history as presented on a macro-level, be reconciled with the inherent meaningfulness of everyday life? It isn’t just the Christian that finds meaning in life, meaningfulness seems to be baked into the world and people the world over recognize this. We know that nations rise and fall throughout the course of history, that history is scattered with the graves of kingdoms, empires, and republics. Still, people continue to love their nation with enough passion to kill and die for them. We know that human lives end in death and that our works are destroyed by the onslaught of time, but we still find our lives meaningful enough to live and our works to matter enough to do.

It is the love of God that brings creation into being and the love of God that grants creation meaning. This is reflected in the love for the good found in every human heart. Human love often goes astray and often is given disproportionately to objects unworthy of it, but that is only because the world was created good and still retains some shreds of her goodness. We all long for the goodness of Eden, the childhood of mankind, and find some dim reflection of that original innocence in our homelands. This reflection shines brighter when purified by the reign of Christ in our hearts and our homes. Our homelands can then fulfill their proper role as an icon, not just an icon of nostalgia for a paradise lost, but an icon of hope for a new paradise, a heavenly Jerusalem on a new, heavenized Earth.

All of this brings me back to my original question; what is the meaning of my home, Illinois? What part do we play in God’s grand tale of salvation? I don’t think this is a question that can be easily answered, if at all, this side of heaven. Perhaps it is a secret hidden in the mind of God. At the very least, we can discern that it is a setting, a backdrop for the lives of some 12 million souls as the drama of salvation is played out in each of their lives. To quote the eponymous Napoleon of Notting Hill himself, my Illinois is

"a rise or high ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think it absurd?

I was born, like other men, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys' games there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through nights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These little gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought out our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be absurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic when for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow evening in a certain street without being wracked with something of which God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy?”