The modern conceit had been that we could find our own way back to the illuminative center of meaning. We already possessed sufficient light of our own to reveal the path before us. The out­moded remnants of traditions could safely be discarded in the face of this limitless self-confidence. But then we discovered that without a point of reference in the givenness of the world that we could not even take the first steps anywhere. Having become in­dependent of all received sources of meaning we now were blown about without either an anchor or a compass to fix our po­sition. We had peeled away the last layer of the onion only to dis­cover our hands were empty. The illusion that we could from a superior vantage point critique all positions had proved a cruel self-deception. Thinking we could see through all things we ended by no longer having anything to see. Now we discover that we are creatures of time and space in which the limits of our vi­sion is what has historically been transmitted to us. There is no going back to a beginning before the beginning nor forward to an end that is outside of the whole. Even the effort to attune our ex­istence in relation to transcendent Being cannot dispense with the recognition that revelation occurs within a historically un­folded tradition.

This is what makes the artistic exploration of meaning the most open medium of inquiry. It is tied to the concrete experi­ence of reality, moving outward from the dimensions that imme­diately impinge upon us. Almost by its very nature art responds to the concretely symbolic pulls that tug upon us. This is why even for professed atheists art still resonates with transcendent mystery. Something similar occurs in the concrete struggle to build social and political meaning. It is a matter of indifference where we begin so long as we do begin. By entering on the first steps the dynamic of disclosure takes over and expanses of meaning are discovered that at the beginning were barely sus­pected. But in each case we must entrust ourselves to the rem­nants of meaning that remain. We cannot begin with the Carte­sian elimination of all traditional sources because we will then only be left locked within the loneliness of the ego. That has been the cruel illusion from which the modern world is only now be­ginning to recover.

We recognize that our existence is guarded by the mystery of transcendent Being which is the source of all vitality and mean­ing. And we have overcome the illusion that the miraculous hori­zon could be reached through our own efforts. Instead, we must place ourselves under its revelatory promptings, recognizing that this is the way of all human history and finding within the unsuspected depths of tradition the resources we so sorely lacked within ourselves. In this way the transcendent source of meaning is restored to modern civilization in a fully self-conscious way. Our errors have taught us that the transcendent horizon cannot be constructed through our own paltry efforts nor can it be re­duced to some mundane dimension of our social or political world. It is what guards the meaning of existence precisely be­cause it transcends all existence. We cannot penetrate beyond that mystery, nor can we dispense with the halting historical pro­cess by which the mystery reveals itself to us.