I’ve been thinking lately about
the meaning of life and the meaning of my life in particular. Do you ever do that?
I realize that that’s an age-old truth
that some of the greatest minds in history have endeavored to uncover.
Theologians, philosophers, and poets have all come up with various
interpretations…even the meager likes of us preachers have presumed to give some
answers to questioning minds. One hopes that those who have listened to us have
been discerning enough to dismiss some of our ranting and raving about what a
sorry lot we human beings are and the awful state the world is in.
Is there one single meaning that
universally applies to every life? Also, what do we mean by “meaning?”
To my surprise many of the things
I was told as a young man and many of the things I believed in no longer seem
either true or relevant to the way things really are—not everything, but many.
I don’t know if that means I’ve gotten older and wiser or just older. I would
love to believe that it is the former—older and wiser. But, of course, that
depends a great deal on the definition of “wiser.”
Those of us who are clergy have a
tendency to think that our Sunday morning words are the truth and nothing but
the truth, so help us God. But I can’t tell you how many times after a sermon
that I have wanted to slip quietly away during the final hymn of the service, realizing
the inadequacy of what I just proclaimed to be the meaning of a particular
passage of Scripture and thereby a segment of the meaning of life itself.
If indeed I am older and wiser,
the wisdom I have come to is this: God has given us the gift of life to decide for
ourselves what the meaning is. For some it is about earning proper credits for
the next life; for some it is fame and fortune; for some it is making this world
a better place for all people; for some it is finding the way to true happiness
(that’s what the Dalai Lama says it is); for some it is all about living out the
work ethic; for some it is being nice (which a friend of mine said is the
simple definition of being Christian); for some it is learning and growing; for
some it is art or music. I could go on and list several other options, but I’m
sure you get the idea.
On this somewhat gentle rainy day, the
meaning of life, at least to me at the moment is to be thankful. Come to think
of it, maybe that’s the meaning everyday and all the rest is living with an open mind and heart for whatever may come my way. John Lennon said: "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."
Actually I think quite a bit about what my life means. Every now and then, I re-read something I've written (as I will eventually re-read this comment) and be appalled by how many first-person-singular references it includes. It suggests to me that someone doesn't have to be a preacher to imagine that his/her words are THE truth, y'know?
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite places on the Internet for considering these matters is a blog called whiskey river. I don't know anything about the (anonymous) person who's maintained it for years. Several times a week, he/she posts a short quotation -- sometimes a whole poem, sometimes an excerpt from an essay or book -- by an author other than the whiskey river blogger. Many of the selections are from Oriental sources -- Zen monks and so on -- but not exclusively so. It's worth dropping in on every now and then for inspiration (even for non-writing purposes). You can find it at http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/
(My own blog every Friday includes a post built around one or more of the previous week's whiskey river quotations, to which I add a few more or less relevant quotations I've discovered on my own. All my so-called "whiskey river Fridays" posts (I've accumulated 239 so far!) are here: http://johnesimpson.com/blog/category/03_runningaftermyhat/whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat/ )
P.S. Just read an interesting quote: "When we start to realize that we're not going to be here forever, we become aware that it's not clear what it meant to be here at all." Apparently it's from a book called How to Say It to Seniors: Closing the Communication Gap with Our Elders, by one David Solie.
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