The Historical Labyrinth: a Helpful Analogy

This summer, I spent two months traveling all over Europe—a wonderful and world-expanding experience (and also a good excuse for not blogging in a very long time!). I got to visit many places that are rich in history, and I felt my historical understanding expanding with each new location. When I entered college two years ago, I chose History as my concentration within a Humanities major, not because I had any great expertise in History, but because I had a great fascination with the story of the world. My travels this summer gave me many opportunities to indulge that fascination, and also to think about the value of historical understanding.

One day, as I was pondering a conversation about history that I’d had with some fellow students, it occurred to me that history is kind of like a labyrinth. There have been so many places, so many people, and so many stories interacting with each other in so many ways, that it is easy to become quite lost as you try to navigate your way through them and discover how they are all woven together in the big picture. I think that this is why so many kids think history is boring: they get lost in the labyrinth of names and dates, and fail to see why it all matters. I can imagine a student wandering through a maze of historical facts and finding it all quite confusing. If he is able to see the history from a bird’s-eye view, he will discover a dazzling pattern in which all the smaller details play a part.

Viewing history through the analogy of a labyrinth, I find, lends two helpful lessons: the first as a matter of didactics, the second as a matter of appreciating the world and academia more fully.

Firstly, history would be both easier and more exciting for students to learn if they first are given a peak at what the labyrinth looks like from above (ie: the big picture). The practical application of this is as simple as beginning a history lesson with broad sweeping stories that give context to the study at hand. If a learner has a grasp on the significant principles and events of an epoch, it is much easier to understand how all the details fit into the big picture. In light of the grand pattern of a labyrinth, each corner and curve is significant (and memorable!) as a part of the larger whole.

Secondly, to look at an even bigger picture, I find that the “labyrinth of history” entails more than just history as we tend to think of it in terms of an isolated discipline. It includes philosophy, literature, language, art, science, and religion. All of these things come into play in the grand story of mankind, and it is often impossible to understand the twists and turns of the labyrinth without recognizing how these things impact the course of history. Together, the multiple disciplines can give us a fuller grasp on the big picture of human history. Most importantly, all of these things are linked to the metanarrative of God’s plan for humanity, which is the ultimate big picture of the labyrinth. Our gracious God, who controls every moment of history, is weaving together all the complex aspects of human existence according to his plan for salvation. Only in light of this grand metanarrative can we truly understand and enjoy the value of historical events.