“Does a Flapper Make a Good Wife? Painted lips, flush of liquor, scanty raiment, dash, and high speed – How do they mix with happy marriage?” The Roaring Twenties question posed in an article by Kathleen Norris in the weekly magazine Liberty may have given some men pause to wonder, and ask “Am I willing to risk marriage to a gal with these questionable attributes?”

Well, I admit that the question of whether a Flapper would make a good wife is a tad antique by now. But, then, so are both Liberty magazine and I. Still, the question raised back in the 1920s by Kathleen Norris about what constitutes moral, civilized good manners and behavior are no less relevant to a successful marriage these days. A good, moral man capable of responsible and trustworthy commitment and a good moral woman capable of the same are still most likely to make a good, moral, and committed marriage.

Nope, not going to go into endless discussion of what constitutes “morality.” I’m antique enough to believe some things are right and some things are wrong. It’s wrong to lie, cheat, steal, abuse a child, engage in sexual perversion or betray the love and trust of a marriage partner. Some might say in this respect “It’s easy to be on the side of the angels.” But only those who haven’t tried it would say such a thing in the face of society today notwithstanding the heated debate over women bobbing their hair seems no longer relevant to these times.

But one thing debated since the beginnings of human history has not lessened in intensity, the debate concerning questions surrounding the origin and purpose of life. “Why can’t we know?” a very young and beautiful Clara Bow asked in this exquisitely poignant way concerning the hereafter during a Liberty magazine interview. While Clara Bow was exploited as the “It” girl, anyone making a study of her life cannot escape the conclusion that she was a very profound person; and more importantly, a very good person.

To know that we don’t know raises an interesting philosophical question as well, particularly when science is telling us that 96% of the universe is unknown, and possibly unknowable, leaving great latitude for speculation as to what is contained in that vast unknown. When it comes to the grand questions of philosophy, the how and the why of the universe, of life and death, science has made some progress in giving us answers to the material composition of the universe, but the fundamental questions remain unanswered. And the question, all pretensions and charlatans aside, remains whether we can know? I can’t help but smile at the question Clara Bow in her interview with Liberty phrased so succinctly and eloquently, the haunting question from time immemorial, so seemingly ingenuously. And while the question lends itself to the dictum “You cannot know what you cannot know,” no philosopher or theologian has ever phrased it better or more honestly than she did.

Religion and its varied monuments, artifacts and methods of worship and the King of Disciplines, Philosophy, do not provide us any certain knowledge of where we came from or where we are going. They do not answer Clara Bow’s honest question. But it does seem that we are possessed of an instinct that caused Clara Bow to even ask the question; that drives us, just as the caterpillar, in a direction that death is not the end, that life does have purpose, that by whatever form of a “butterfly” we emerge, that purpose will be fulfilled. There is an instinct of self-preservation and for procreation in all life forms. Perhaps we human beings even have an instinct for love? Why shouldn’t there be an instinct for a belief in God, for a belief in purpose in our lives and that death is not the end?

Religion and the biases and prejudices in our lives may be matters of choice or what we have been taught to believe. Such things do not seem to be “instinctive” but depend on things like others and how they impact our lives, of things like the circumstances of environment, what we are taught and what we choose to believe. But could it be that we have an “instinct” to believe in God? If so, it still remains of critical importance to separate what we believe from what we know based on empirical evidence rather than coming to blows over matters of beliefs.

It may be that Clara Bow’s question cannot be answered while we remain in our present form. It may be that as the caterpillar may not know or recall anything of its larval stage, and the butterfly may not recall either of its previous stages of existence, such “knowing” isn’t possible for us at this time; that such things progress on the basis of an unconscious knowing that we call “instinct.” Like the caterpillar, we may believe in God(s) by instinct, and by that instinct attempt to live our lives in preparation for the hereafter, our instinct in most cases being to live by the precept of the Golden Rule and emerge the most beautiful butterfly possible at the next stage of life.

Though answers to such questions may in fact not be possible to us in our present form of existence, the pursuit of answers, the curiosity that drives people to search for answers continues. It seems that the quest for answers to these questions is just as natural (instinctive?) as that of the caterpillar preparing for its next stage of development. But the caterpillar, while having the instinct for survival and preparation for becoming a butterfly, has no sense of impending death… and it does not die, but metamorphose. Jesus’ parable of the seed certainly represents this very example, as does the teaching concerning “resurrection bodies.”

The quest for answers about life and death has much to do with a great deal more than just curiosity. Humankind has the knowledge of death, something the caterpillar does not have. The butterfly? It lays its eggs and dies and that is the end of the cycle of nature for it… but human beings? Self awareness is a great distinction between a lower life form and human beings, one that calls to mind the Genesis account of our being made in the image of God, and as such the children of God; and perhaps we have an instinctual “knowing” of this resulting in a search for answers and the refusal to accept death as the end of the cycle of nature for humankind.

I have pointed out in the past that we may be born with an instinct to believe in God(s), an instinct that leads us to believe in things like prayer and a hereafter, an instinct that makes us cry out to God(s) in extremis. It would be of great comfort to me to be able to answer Clara Bow’s question: Why can’t we know? My guess is that in the grand scheme of things it was determined best that we should not know, apart from what may be that instinct of knowing. And I continue to believe the opening chapters of Genesis are based on facts of the actual Creation and The Fall.

Time may be relative, but death is not. The quest for an answer to what life and death really are goes on and we will continue searching in spite of the many charlatans, and as long as humankind is possessed of self-awareness, imagination, and curiosity, whatever the source of these, we will continue the quest. In the meantime, I maintain the hope that I will yet join loved ones and friends that have gone on before me, no matter where they have “gone on.” My part, my responsibility as long as I’m in this body that is only a vehicle for the transport of this “fire of life” I carry about that is me is continue trying to emerge at last the most beautiful butterfly possible. After all, though esoteric it does not seem to me to be of paramount importance whether someone is the best Buddhist, Jew, Catholic, Baptist or any other, but what kind of butterfly may eventually emerge.