In my most recent Grief Support Group we talked about what it is to have a purpose, a meaning in life. As we get older we aren’t “needed” as much. Our children and their children, our grandchildren, don’t find as much time for us because they are living their busy lives. We don’t have as many close friends after we move to a retirement community, after the death of close friends and family, after we have to give up our car. And that produces loneliness. So, “WHY are we here after we become useless?”
As a pastor, I know the question of “Why are we here?” is a topic never fully answered in our faith or in our lives. It is like the topic “truth” which draws new armchair philosophers like me every day. So here I am again, trying to unlock the secrets of the universe. God help me!
Some agree with the great physicist Stephen Hawking, “Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.”[1] So we try and find a job that satisfies us and in which we are committed to the goals of the company or we strive to be an autonomous genius like Hawking. A huge percentage fail. So does their life not have meaning? Does anyone have a purpose after the work is done? What is my purpose in retirement?
Or you can be like my wife, Judith, who says “It’s not work if you love what you are doing.” Having a daily task that you love can certainly leave one satisfied. And perhaps that can be your purpose . . . until you retire or become unfit to remain in that workplace.
Helen Keller: “True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” [1] Reading between the lines, I assume Ms. Keller meant that if we pledged ourselves to a “cause” that we deem worthy, like The Salvation Army, or housing the homeless, or feeding the hungry, we might find ourselves feeling needed. True but what is our purpose then after we become too infirm or the cause is completed?
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”[1] wrote the great Psychologist, Carl Jung. Sorry, even though I studied Jung in college, I cannot begin to understand what it means to “kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” But what can we do if our spark is dwindling and we feel useless?
It seems to me that we want our purpose in life to be something that is measurable. Our purpose is to make more money, to move up in the hierarchy in a profession, to get a thousand likes on this blog, to get a million followers on Tiktoc. We somehow think our lives, at the end, may be reckoned as valueless if there isn’t anything measurable to be put in the obit, like military service, college degrees, or our progeny. Obituaries are about touting our final tally, I think.
Even those of us who live by faith want our lives to be “good enough” to be received in heaven, even though Paul says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”[2] Because I went to seminary and was ordained, I get to be called Reverend (Rev) like I had been knighted by God and the Church to battle The Enemy. I used to wear a clerical collar as a sign of my competence? My rank? My ability to stand a foot or so above the level of church pews? I gave it up one Sunday in Lent 4 or 5 years ago. I was tired of being somehow elevated in my mind and the minds of my congregants.
Staying with Brainy Quotes I find my self aligned with the Dalai Lama who said, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”[1] I have started to cling to a passage from the Bible that correlates with the thinking of the Dalai Lama. It given me a sense of the Purpose of Life.
Matthew 12:”28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
This conversation with Jesus tells me that my purpose in life is to have and honor relationships with God and God’s creation. My purpose is to receive into my life all who cross my path and stop for a moment or more. My purpose is to be available to become a part of the journey of those I encounter and let them journey with me. I try never to exclude anyone from my life, even if they don’t agree with me on the Purpose of Life or in politics. Let us walk together in peace, looking out for each other.
I cannot shake the feeling that, in my Grief Support Group, I have not helped much in getting some to know their worth in the world even though I have shared my understanding that they matter because they have become a meaningful part of the lives of everyone in our Grief Support Group and beyond. They tell me they still go back to their apartments and sit, lonely and useless. I hope, in the end, if I am not helping them, at least I am not hurting them. God help them, and me.
Bro. Ken Explores . . . 