Meaning(full) Lives

So a few weeks ago I was at a conference where they showed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUMf7FWGdCw the following link. It's a set of research done by some guys about how we are living in exponential times. Everything is getting faster, deadlier, more intelligent, more specialized. People are less happy, people need more, some people have less than ever before.

I've been chatting to tons of friends trying to find out what their lives are supposed to be about... what to do, what to be, who to be with... etc.

I heard a sermon this morning by my pastor in the U.S. where he quoted the late Carl Jung who said our generation is plagued by the neurosis of emptiness.

Today my friend called me and told me he was sick of his job, not because of the work, but because he has to deal with stupid people all the time... he's in law enforcement. He's also a soldier, and splits his time between law enforcement and fighting overseas.

He's volunteered for a fairly dangerous post overseas for 9 months... even though he just got back from a 7 month post. He's going to do security for humanitarian efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.

Similarly, another friend is sooo sick of his job. He just feels useless there... like his job is sucking out his soul. He want's something new, something fresh, something that he can put his heart into.

I'm not trying to argue that people shouldn't leave their jobs, or be unhappy. I do think, however, that sometimes, rather than moving or changing, we have to reevaluate where we already are.

With everything changing so fast in our exponential times, we need something to hold on to. Much like a child on a merry-go-round that keeps spinning faster, we're getting to the point where many feel like they're going to be flung off. Maybe some already have been. In a society where some people's most meaningful relationship is with their computer or PDA, people hop from job to job, from relationship to relationship at the first sign of trouble or boredom, where our biggest obsession is how we appear, professionally, physically, emotionally... fashion is in everything from our facebook profile, to our clothes, to what music we listen to... we are forever judged and forever judging. With things changing so fast, what can we hold on to?

It's becoming obvious that the things that people have put their trust in for hundreds and thousands of years aren't working. The markets are failing, even property value is fluxuating. Of the many friends of mine who have gotten married over the past few years, some are already separating or divorcing. Highly qualified professionals are losing their jobs or can't even find one. Our very expensive educations are failing us. What is there that we can hold on to?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said "if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live." King, himself, was assassinated and is remembered as one of the foremost fighters for justice, freedom, peace, and an end to racism and civil rights in the United States.

He believed in the power of non-violent protest, love, brotherhood, and vehemently opposed oppression, hatred, and discrimination, instead encouraging and fighting for justice in the world... but not just a justice that weighs the scales equally, but the loving attitude that would voluntarily give to his neighbor.

Similarly, George Eliot, in her novel Middlemarch, wrote "What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?" Her character, Dorothea Brooke, a very unusual young lady in Victorian England spent an inordinate amount of her time learning, thinking, and using her intelligence to help her community. She designed a new cottage system for the peasants on her Uncle's property and spent much of her time visiting them and taking care of the sick. Though Dorothea Brooke is a fictional character, she stands in stark juxtaposition to the selfish Victorians who cluttered their lives with things and overanalysed everything, making their lives a dramatic mess.

Both of these characters, both real and fictional, pose a very keen question... What IS the point of life? What SHOULD we be living for?

Ironically, the speaker of Ecclesiastes finds NO meaning in life though he had all wisdom, knowledge, though he was king, though he could have any pleasure he wanted (and he did... Solomon was the poster boy for pleasure and riches). This is what he says: All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever. . . . All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. . . . I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. . . .

I think Solomon's main issue was that he didn't CARE about anything enough to let it influence him. If you let everything pass over you like a river of culture, and you simply sweep along with the current and let it take you wherever it pleases, you may find that you have a lot of experience that doesn't mean a whole lot to you.

Paul, in contrast, writes in Philippians 3: ¹⁴"this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." ¹

I consider Paul's lines words that describe having a passion... He chose that his life was going to be about Jesus and he was going to forget everything else. Considering the fact that he spent most of his life killing and persecuting Christians, he had a lot to forget.

I'm not saying that you have to be passionate about Jesus, you might be passionate about your community, your family, world hunger, stopping the sex trade, fair trade farming world wide, counselling people who suffer from self-harm... you could be passionate about world education, about stopping genocide, about cleaning up your local park, lowering local rates of illiteracy,... I don't know. But you have to let yourself LOVE something, care about something, be sold out for something.... something that is WORTH your life. In the words of Olympia Dukakis in the Moonstruck "Your life ain't built on nothin'. Te amo!" (Yeh, I never thought I'd quote a Cher movie).

For my friend in the military, he chooses to strap on armour and put his life at risk to help rebuild very at risk communities. Communities lacking proper sewers, fresh water, hospitals and schools.

The sad thing is that he worked in law enforcement with drunks and prostitutes... with people who need love, who need people to show them order and discipline... and he is tired and can't handle it. For him, it's EASIER to go to a place totally devoid of luxury and even basic needs than to deal with the self-involved drama of a community of people swept away by the river of culture that is whirling by. But even they need something to hold onto. Even they need someone to show them that there is more to life than what they have chose... that kind of life is vanity, a chasing after the sun...

The world is more linked and yet more separated it seems than ever before. With the advent of the internet we can talk to people and even video link from thousands of miles away. We can translate information into hundreds of languages, yet those who have and those who don't have seems still as stark as before. World leaders are still letting hundreds of people starve, die from simple illnesses, and be oppressed by their leaders each day.

Now I know some of you will look at this message and mock it. Some will doubt it. Some will say... yeh... but forget it and move on to the next facebook or blog highlight. "Something to DIE for?" some of you will ask... Some of you might mock that I quote the Bible, some of you might think I'm a hypocrite... and maybe I am... I haven't thrown myself in front of suicide bombers or strapped myself to a crane that would be destroying a historic building... the truth is, you will think whatever you need to in order to be ok with the choices you're making in your life. . . .

Still, consider that for the many million believers around the world, Jesus found something worth dieing for: His glory and our freedom and salvation, and this weekend we celebrate that those things He held on to, His love for us, His purity, His goodness and compassion defeated death and rose Him from death.

Jesus lived and died for something. King died for something. Even Dorothea Brooke died for something... What do you live for? Would you die for it?