The End is Where We Start From

I usually resist the temptation to comment on silliness like this, but this morning’s article about a “Creation Museum” opening up in Petersburg, Kentucky does point to what I think is an important question: Are we, as human beings, defined by the mechanics of our origins or the nature of our ends? The very existence of an organization called “Answers in Genesis” seems troubling to me. I believe that there are some answers in Genesis, although they are different answers to different (less important) questions than the ones on display in Kentucky. Regardless of how God got all of this started, what I want to know is, How does the story end?

Almost immediately after reading this article, I came across the following passage in Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:

The end is where we start from. “In my end is my beginning” (T.S. Eliot). Endings take precedence over beginnings. We begin a journey by first deciding on a destination. We gather information and employ our imagination in preparing ourselves for what is to come: Life is the end of life; life, life, and more life.

Beginnings are important, but only to the extent that they illuminate our ends.