The Meaning of Life/A Life of Meaning
I was inspired by a book I came across last spring called, “Shop Class as Soul Craft.” The author of the book left a very lucrative career in finance to open a motorcycle shop. He had been lamenting the lack of tangible work he was doing and wanted to simply get his hands dirty. He wanted to build stuff. Make engines purr. Smell like grease. So, he did, and he wrote a book about it, and he encourages the readers to do something similar.
I’m not opening a motorcycle shop.
But I understand his reasons for doing so. There is something deep inside of us that longs for proof that our life has been worth the living.
While I didn’t open a motorcycle shop, I did take this desire of mine to make something and I did what any normal person would do in my position. I inflicted that desire upon the campers and staff at Camp Highlands for Boys. And asked them to build us a new set of stairs, leading up to our main congregating area at camp.
I was surprised by the response.
Everybody wanted to participate. It was sort of like how Tom Sawyer got his pals to paint his fence for him; but I didn’t have to convince anyone. We just started digging, and people came to pitch in. They left their activities like water skiing and archery and kayaking, and other cool things to do on a summer day and opted instead for blisters and dirt under their fingernails and heavy lifting and twice-measuring and, at the end of the day, the satisfaction of knowing that something that they helped to build would be here for their children and grandchildren. And they did a beautiful job. And they have left an indelible mark on Camp Highlands for the next hundred years.
To participate in something like that is a very affirming thing to do. It proves that love and friendship and hard work, and focus and vision and inspiration and team work, when combined, can leave an impact on the world; make it a better place. And that brings a terrific sense of value to life; in the simple and basic form of a set of stairs.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to bring value to life; not quite as deep and heavy as contemplating the meaning of life, but certainly considering what makes life meaningful. So I googled it, of course. And in my searching I found something interesting. Based on the billions of hits one gets when doing a google search about living a meaningful life, it is strikingly obvious that this is a challenge that plagues modern society in some pretty intense ways; I am not the only one pondering such things. Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. But it also appears that people have either forgotten what that means and how to get to it, OR we’re simply looking for the fastest way to find it. It is possible that people are more interested in pursuing happiness instead of meaning. And the more I’ve thought about it the more convinced I am that there are important differences between the two. A good question to consider is, what is more important to you? Happiness? Or contentment? Are you—am I, willing to sacrifice a little bliss for a life of deep meaning, or should we sacrifice deep meaning for a little more happiness? Depending on the day I could go both ways.
Believe it or not, there is actually a test that we can take that will tell us our happiness quotient. (www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu) The link is in your bulletin, but I’d appreciate it if you’d wait until you get home to take it. I took it. Twice. I took it twice because I was a little baffled by my initial results. I didn’t do much better the second time, but I did forego a little of my deeply ensconced midwestern necessity for modesty and try to answer their questions with a little more robust ego with the hopes of getting a better score than I did. According to this test, I’m only at about 60% general happiness when compared to other test takers in our zip code. I don’t know why, but I assumed I’d be “happier.”
The test was created by Dr. Martin Seligman from the Positive Psychology institute out of Penn State. Positive Psychology is a recent addition to the world of psychology. In 1998 Dr. Seligman challenged his peers in the field to shift some of their research and attention AWAY from constantly trying to find out what is wrong with us and instead see what is going well for us. He realized that much of his work had been focused on bringing people up to essentially net-zero, but he says that after his patients achieved a sense of normalcy he didn’t have any clear directives to help them exceed normalcy and move into a happier existence. Some of the initial findings from The Positive Psychology approach quickly took root in popular culture. One telling sign; in 2000, 50 books had been published about basic happiness, and how to get it. But by 2008 there were 4000 books published under the same topic. Now everyone from the Dali Lama to Rhonda Byrnes has a book on happiness. The American people had been clamoring for happiness. And that clamoring hasn’t slowed down.
In a recent article republished in The Week magazine recently, the most popular class ever offered in the history of Yale University is one called Psychology and The Good Life. 1200 students enrolled in the class last year. The University has realized they have touched a nerve, and now offers it free of charge online.
It didn’t used to be this way. The pursuit of a good life used to be ingrained in the institutions of higher learning—and in religious institutions as well-. In fact, according to the American Freshman, an institution that has tracked the values of entering college students since the 1960’s, it used to be that the TOP priority for college freshmen was to use their time of learning as a time for them to discern a deeper meaning and clearer purpose for their lives. Nearly 86% of students in the late 1960’s said this was an essential life goal. But by the year 2000, there had been a drastic shift. Now just 40% of college freshmen put, “pursuing a meaningful life philosophy” as a top priority. The top priority since 2000? “Being very well off financially.” And, in a similar and disconcerting way, we have seen the decline in membership and participation in mainline protestant churches across the country; while also seeing the ridiculous creation and rise of something called, “the prosperity gospel.” Pray your way to being very well off, financially. Is it any wonder we have forgotten how to be happy?
The clamor for the happiness gospel shows that people have lost sight of the path to find deeper meaning in their lives. Fortunately, the creators and adherents to the fields of positive psychology have been privy to these national trends and have been able to quantify a happier life. Yes, even the pursuit of happiness has been turned into a science. The leading words of advice will likely not surprise you.
One of the first things one quickly learns is that happiness is overrated. At least, quick hit happiness. How did you do on your list of things that would make you happier? Obviously, everything that we put on our lists brings us happiness in some way. But some happiness is worth more others in the long run than others, it turns out. For example, I put “eating a mini-snickers bar.” I don’t know who the sinful soul was that put a bunch of mini snickers bars in our little secret candy stash in the office; but whomever they are I love them and curse them at the same time. I have had more than my fair share of happiness blips these past two weeks thanks to that basket. And I am grateful.
But that little joyful jolt only lasts so long. Soon the sugar crashes and the guilt rolls up and I feel like I should do a few squats in my office to make up for the tasty treat.
The adherents to positive psychology would likely point out that a way to prolong that happiness would have been to sit down and enjoy that delicious morsel with the person who brought it. Thank them for their service to the church and engage them in a little conversation. Or, even better, pair that conversation with a delicious cabernet, cook a meal together and share it with friends, and perhaps drizzle that mini-snickers across some fancy ice cream, and suddenly we’ve got a happiness that brings deep meaning with it. Time with friends. Communal bonding. Laughter, tears, good conversation; and time well spent; these are the ingredients for a more fulfilling and continued pleasing path of happiness. Imagine now the scene of Jesus on the last night with his disciples, after a delicious carbonara and a fantastic pinot, mopping up the last of the bread in the wine when our dear friend, teacher and guide asks us to pause, and remember this scene, and asks, “friends, whenever you gather like this, would you please remember me?”
Now, I don’t know that one would say Jesus had a particularly happy life. I’m pretty sure the word “happy” is never used in the gospels. But meaningful? You bet.
It used to be that people relied on the religious institutions to help provide the guidance to attain some sense of deeper purpose and meaning in life. According to Emily Esfahani Smith, “historically, religious and spiritual institutions laid out that answers to questions of a meaningful life. In most traditions, the meaning of life lies in God…following a moral code and engaging in practices like meditation, fasting and acts of charity help the seeker grow closer to God or that reality, endowing day-to-day life with importance. But in the developed world, religion no longer commands the authority it once did.” She said, In her book, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters,”
Emily Esfahani Smith goes on to say that deeper meaning can once again be found by remembering those things that once were and continue to be the cornerstone pillars of practice that she discovered growing up in a Sufi household- In the Sufi gatherings that she grew up in, she discerned that there were 4 pillars of existence that her parents and their fellow practitioners adhered to. They had a strong sense of community and belonging; an all-encompassing sense of purpose, regular experiences of transcendence, and then the ability to frame these experiences into a cohesive whole, through storytelling. Community. Purpose. Experiences of Transcendence, and Storytelling.
Similar structures are being put in place in a wide variety of places. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has created a program called, “in our own voice,” where survivors of mental illness share their story with a wider audience, and in so doing create empathetic relationships, help to clarify individual purpose, and through the framework of storytelling, help those who have suffered in the past re-frame their struggles into important stepping stones into the people they are today, while also reducing the stigma that is attached to those of us who suffer from mental illness. It’s a powerful program.
Gathering together to hear one another’s stories creates intimate community. If you haven’t yet been to a Guts N Glory show (there’s one this Thursday) or a Story GNV event, or the Conch storytelling out at Lightening Salvage, I highly recommend you do. In fact, there will be what promises to be a powerful experience tomorrow night at the Hipp, where people from the community will share their experiences considering the recent Racial Disparities report.
When we hear one another’s stories, we frame up our own. When we empathize with one another’s challenges and laugh at one another’s joys we create deeper connections beyond our common circles of family and friends; and with that comes a deeper sense of belonging and being a beloved one.
The most powerful messages of Jesus came to us through story. We might not be able to recite the beatitudes, but we could probably tell the tale of the Syrophoenician woman, or the crippled man, or the prodigal son. And these stories inspire deeper purpose in our lives. I want to reach out in love to someone who has been isolated and lonely for 30 years and bring her comfort; I want to tear off a roof in service to a friend in need of healing; I want to be welcomed home by someone with whom I’ve had a falling out. And I want to know that, though there might be struggles along the way, that my voice matters, and my life is valued.
A life of meaning is something we can work on. We can enhance out communal connections and deepen our friendships. We can explore our life’s purpose and pursue noble goals and worthwhile dreams. We can experience the transcendent divine in a sunbeam or a rainbow or a beautiful song sung by a friend. And we can find ourselves as important characters in the story of life; the life of this place, the life of one another and the life of the world. A life of meaning comes when we are truly content with who we are, and when we can see how our life is shaped by and is shaping the ways of the world in positive and worthwhile ways. Even if it’s just greeting someone in an authentic way; even if it’s just working for a few days building a new set of stairs for a friend.
“Do not worry about your life (Jesus said.) What you will eat or drink, how you will look, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, the body more than clothes? Seek first the kin-dom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Andy Bachmann
September 9, 2018