Life and challenges go together. Like suffering and creativity, they’re fairly inescapable bedfellows. Things have reminded me this week, days have included moments when I want to shout, “What’s the point?” And then I remember, thankfully, I’m no longer on a quest for purpose.
Not that seeking a purpose is inherently bad. The word has to do with reasons, and reasoning is significant. But, unlike Rick Warren, I disagree about what ought to drive a life. Warren appears to be a nice guy, an honorable pastor and so on. I’m glad President Obama asked him to pray at the inauguration ceremony. But I don’t get his foundational push for purpose, because anything I purpose to do can end up deflated as my leaky front driver’s side tire when I forget to have it pumped at Les Schwab.
Apparently Warren believes our purposing is all about practicing in this life for eternity. Doing my best now for God, so the doors of heaven will gape wider on my behalf. Sorry. If that’s the case, let me out here and you go on ahead. An infinite number of days with this broken self and the futility inherent in my being and yours is not my ideal. If I’m practicing now, getting righter and righter at my free throw baskets, well, there’d be evidence somewhere for that, yes? My points would start adding up on this side of the veil. But dang if in all honesty I can’t see that happening.
I don’t think I’m alone. Ecclesiastes is a book I’ve loved for years. Solomon likely wrote it, and it’s all about the endless cycles under the sun where nothing really changes. Every fresh generation carries the same flaws. Each new deal harbors unforeseeable consequences. Depressing, indeed, and yet it’s comforting as well. “Drink your wine with a merry heart…enjoy life…remember your Creator.” These are Solomon’s admonishments for navigating the days given. In his words, crazily enough you may think, I find meaning.
As long as there is meaning to grasp, every sunrise brings a thrill of hope. Dreams may lie in ruin, but a sad piece of this life’s puzzle can teach me, and it will pass. Like an unborn babe, I’m not privy to the full view of purposes waiting in the next phase of existence. But I find meaning and beauty believing that this moment and the ones to come beyond breath will be very different, because I, while still myself, will be given a different existence. The broken aspects of life now will be fixed, or else I’ve read Solomon and Jesus wrong.
Once upon a day of miracles Jesus muttered, “How long must I suffer you?”, meaning me and everybody in the centuries since. I’m waiting with wonder for the day past his suffering and mine. In the meantime, I’ll fill tires, watch a few sunrises, and imagine.
Wonderful!
Reminds me of “Firefly”–Mel was all full of purpose and surety in the original pilot, and then the entire show follows life after the purpose falls apart and one is left with…
what?
With his broken self, the people around him (chosen and un-), and a spaceship with a propensity for flat tires!
Just like us. Or just like me, anyway.
And thus is ever was.
World without end.
Ecclesiastes is the smartest, funniest book. “The race does not go to the swift…”
Thanks Fresca, for reminding me of Firefly. Serenity (though it had to be the rest of the series smushed into two hours), especially, carried that message about humans seeking perfectionistic purity, and how well that turns out.
Maybe we can discuss those Proverbial phrases sometime further. :o)
Very cool, and very well written. :)
Brian was at Barnes and Noble the other day, and saw this book, which just came out: Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to the Purpose-Driven Life. Maybe you should check it out! Or, from the themes in your post, maybe you’re already reading it?
Thanks, Jodi. Sometimes things build up, and I must wax poetic/preachy.
I haven’t read that book, Melanie, but I’m curious now to look into it. Was it in the Christian section? (I’ll check out amazon and see.)
This one comforted me, Deanna.
“As long as there is meaning to grasp, every sunrise brings a thrill of hope. Dreams may lie in ruin, but a sad piece of this life’s puzzle can teach me, and it will pass.”
Yes. Just yes to the entire post. I feel inspired.
Thanks for writing it.