A dear friend just passed from this life into the next. She fought the cancer valiantly for 4 years, undergoing extensive and painful treatments. Through it all she remained positive, optimistic and courageous.
A bright light has gone out in our world. There are many who are hurting and grieving her death, even as we celebrate her life.
At such a time, age old questions emerge and consume one’s thinking.
What is this life all about anyway? Are we here for a purpose or is life just random?
Why are people subjected to such devastating illnesses?
Is there some kind of life or existence after this one?
People have been asking these questions from earliest times- and with all our knowledge and wisdom, we still do not know the answers. We surmise, postulate, preach, opinionate, guess, and speculate- but we don’t with any certainty KNOW.
Science, with all its hypotheses and experiments, can prove nothing really concerning these profound metaphysical issues.
The easiest course is to banish or ignore the questions altogether.
Which to my mind is a thunderous cop-out. Rigorous pondering seems to be a thing of the past.
What’s the purpose of life?
That’s a good place to start.
Is it merely to survive? For the Neanderthals that might have been reason enough. I hardly think that encompasses our true life purpose.
Is it to continually repopulate the earth, generation after generation?
Is it to obtain knowledge and understanding? Is education the key
Is it to be awake and aware- to be conscious of things beyond even our grasp or understanding?
Is it to be safe and protected, with little risk or daring?
Is it to acquire things- home, job, spouse, status, money
Is it for service? To help others along the way?
Perhaps most of those things play a part in the way we live out our lives.
For each, with whatever time is available, there is the chance to live to your full potential, to care about and help others, to stretch your soul to its full capability, so that you leave a beneficial imprint on this world.
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a heathy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Dash
Do you know the story of the dash? It’s from a poem by Linda Ellis. In it, a man was at a funeral of a friend, and noted the date of birth, followed by a dash, and then the date of death, and, as the poem says…
“what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time that they spent alive on earth. And now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own, the cars…the house…the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.”
All You Need is Love
It seems to me that our basic earthly proving ground is the complex, sticky, joyful, troubling relationships in which we spend our lives
What one thing governs these relationships with each other? Is it not love which is the essential creative force in the universe?
- Not sentimental love.
- Not erotic or passionate love
- Not subjective love
But a love that is objective, unbiased, unprejudiced- but humane and caring.
This kind of love is identified as agape- or Godly love- with intrinsic qualities of mercy and grace.
Agape is a love that shows itself by helping out instead of desiring to possess and enjoy. It doesn’t even necessarily include liking the other person or wanting a close relationship.
What it does imply is a concern for the well-being of others- that they have life’s necessities- that their worth is validated- that their voices are heard- that they prosper.
As children we were taught that God is love. But what did that really mean?
Not sentimentality surely! Maybe sympathetic or compassionate or even merciful is a better meaning. The kind of loving-kindness that is concerned with our welfare, without strings attached.
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.” John Wesley
Eternal Love
I am struck by the reports of those who have been through near-death experiences. Every report I have read talks about experiencing the most complete and profound love they’d ever felt.
Dr. Eben Alexander in his book, Proof of Heaven, wrote, “It was somehow beyond all these different compartments of love we have down here on earth. It was something higher, holding all those other kinds of love within itself while at the same time being much bigger than all of them.”
Humanity’s destiny in the universe seems to be to bring forth the experience of love, that everyone may share in it. Objective love, the core creative energy, is also the essential human energy…
So… what if Divine Infinite Love created the universe as a home for that love to be embodied and lived out- a way to express that love in human form.
What if our main purpose in life is to be walking images of eternal love, attempting to live out that love with all its human ramifications, joys and difficulties?
And it isn’t until we die that we experience the fullness and purity of that love
“Both love and God are misunderstood, as they are one and the same.”
― Tapan Gosh, Faceless the Only Way Out
Endless Love
Many years ago I saw the movie Good-bye, Mr. Chips, with Petula Clark. Of all movie music, the theme song of this movie is the one I’ve never forgotten, and by which I attempt to live.
Part of it goes…
“In the morning of my life, I shall look to the sunrise, and the blessings I shall ask is to be brave and strong and true, and the question only God can answer…Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?”
Did you? And do you?
Thought to Ponder
Question-
Have you discovered your purpose in life?
If you’re unsure, maybe one of the following quotes might be a springboard of thought.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” Pablo Picasso
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Life is either a great adventure, or nothing.” Helen Keller
“A life without cause, is a life without effect.” Paul Coelho
“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose, and give your whole heart and soul to it.” Buddha
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” Albert Schweitzer
“The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor and style.” Maya Angelou
