There is something important for us to consider as we think about what gives our lives meaning and wholeness. It has to do with the difference between existence and getting by on the one hand, and living and thriving, on the other.
One of the more interesting texts is Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel is trying to help his people face the hard times and is asking the question, "Can these bones live". Portions of the prophet's text come before the fall of Jerusalem and portions come after the fall.
Chapter 37 was written after the fall of the city and at a time when the people pondered their future and wondered if there would be one. Could they ever recover what they had lost? Ezekiel is trying to tell them they would survive and those bones would live. They would thrive.
How do we come to a point in our lives when we discover what it means to truly live even when there is adversity and grief?
Alfred North Whitehead wrote, "To experience faith is to know that in being ourselves we are more than ourselves: To know that our experience, dim and fragmentary as it is, yet sounds the utmost depths of reality: to know that detached details merely in order to be themselves demand that they should find themselves in a system of things: to know that this system includes the harmony of logical rationality, and the harmony of aesthetic achievement: to know that, while the harmony of logic lies upon the universe as an iron necessity, the aesthetic harmony stands before it as a living ideal moulding the general flux in its broken progress toward finer, subtler issues."
We are not unto ourselves and we are not the first of all but in a long line of every thing that has been. Fullness of life and happiness will be found when we discover the context from which we come and the end toward which we are moving and can discern the way in which everything is related to everything.
People like Loren Eiseley open up the option that puts us into a context and enable us to live out of that context to the point that we can find meaning and wholeness through it.
What is your context? What does your life have to do with birds of the air and fish of the sea and the beauty of the world?
How do you find meaning in your life in the context of your life? If you have thoughts on this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read your response click on the 'comment' box below.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Charles Schuster
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If anyone is feeling confused re this topic I recommend reading the writings of Bishop John Shelby Spong. He is a man with much vision into the future of Christianity. When asked for his definition of God he replied that God is "the ground of all being." Rev. Schuster's sermon explained this concept exceptionally well.
Carol Monahan (visitor on Jan 15th)
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