Our life. . .
provokes us with the evidence that it must have meaning. . . our purpose in
life is to discover this meaning, and live according to it. We have, therefore,
something to live for. The process of living, of growing up, and becoming a
person, is precisely the gradually increasing awareness of what that something
is.
Thomas
Merton
Something to live for. I wonder how that something
changes for us over time. How often do we consciously think about it in our
daily round of life? Maybe the phrase only pops into our consciousness when we
are shaken awake by some struggle.
Or maybe it is a gradually increasing awareness, as
Merton says, that happens in the ordinariness of life. We might think about
what it is we live for from time to time—as we turn the calendar page to a new
year, as we approach a milestone birthday, or when we experience a sense of
restlessness with life as it currently is for us. We may wonder what it is that
we are living for at such times. If we do think about what we are living for,
then a follow up question is called for: What
am I doing that moves me toward meaning in my life?
It is easy to be distracted from questions about meaning
and what we live for by the thrum of daily news, activities, and a thousand (or
even ten) requests for assistance—good things, but must we say yes to every one
of them? We are moving, always moving, it seems, but toward what goal? We have
filled the hours of yet another day, but with what? At the end of the day, in
the purely literal meaning of that phrase, are we any closer to awareness of
what we are living for, or moving toward meaning?
Stephen Covey, in The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, speaks of getting caught up in
“the thick of thin things.” As Lent approaches, I encourage you to walk with
Jesus through this season, to see how he was aware of the meaning of his life,
and how he lived according to it. He had something to live for, and he did. To
reflect on the purposefulness with which he approached life can move us to
clear away the clutter of “thin things” and focus on what it is that gives our
lives meaning. What is it that you are living for?
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