The Meaning Of Life

A big topic to condense in 25 minutes this morning,

But I endure to try.

The meaning of life.

And when beginning such a philosophical inquiry,

I often like to start where most ministers do,

The wise lads of Monty Python,

Who in the cult classic film Monty Python and the meaning of life finally reveal it to us.

Try and be nice to people,

Avoid eating fat,

Read a good book every now and then,

Get some walking in,

And try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Yes.

Wouldn't life be so much easier if we all agreed and practiced this meaning?

Douglas Adams,

A writer for Monty Python,

Became best known for a work called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And in that work,

There's a little robot called Deep Thought,

Programmed with one purpose,

To answer the question of life,

The universe,

And everything.

And Deep Thought begins to calculate this,

And it only takes him 7.

5 million years.

And so when he comes up with the answer,

The world is very,

Very interested.

Billions of people watching Deep Thought reveal the answer to the meaning of life.

And Deep Thought shares that the answer is 42.

A great message to us,

That perhaps the meaning of life is not something to be answered,

But lived.

Not something to be explained,

But experienced.

This is something the great Joseph Campbell taught,

That the meaning of life is to live your adventure.

He said,

If there's a path in front of you,

It's not your path.

It's somebody else's path.

Campbell was inspired by Arthurian legends,

The knights of the round table who sat at a round table.

Why?

So they didn't bludgeon each other fighting for who got to sit at the head of the table.

And Campbell theorized that in order to set forth on an adventure,

Each knight had to find the place in the forest that was most dark and in which no one had entered before.

Campbell taught for decades at Sarah Lawrence College,

An all-girls school,

Where he imparted his wisdom on how to live the hero's or the heroine's journey.

And he shared that the saddest moments of his teaching career were when a young woman would come back and that spark for adventure was no longer in her eyes.

And they both knew what had happened,

That she had chosen a path that someone else wanted her to follow,

Be it a man or society or her parents,

And lost that creative spark.

Stephen Mitchell,

A relationship therapist,

Said that one of the keys to long-lasting romance,

And I think it's a key to living as well,

Is to recognize that creative tension between the desire for safety and the desire for adventure.

That in all of our relationships,

We want to feel safe and comfortable and familiar and at ease,

But we also want romance,

A spark,

Some sort of electricity.

Honey,

I'm not just the person who leaves the dishes in the sink.

Have you seen I have very attractive knees?

Plato knew this as well.

He said that there are two types of love,

Philia and eros.

Philia is familiar love.

I love getting to be with you so much.

I know you so well.

You know me so well.

We get along so well,

I just can't believe it.

Familiar love,

Philia.

And then there's eros,

Romantic love,

Erotic love,

Adventurous love.

Honey,

You and I have been together for so long and you are still an incredible mystery to me.

Esther Perel,

Who has become the leading voice in our country and perhaps in the world on this topic of relationships,

Gives this relationship advice,

But I want you to apply it not only to your relationships,

But to your relationship with yourself and this thing called life.

She said,

I believe that separateness is a precondition for connection.

If love is about having,

Desire is about wanting.

It is stoked by mystery,

Distance,

And the realization that we never own our partner.

They are forever elusive,

Even while we claim to know them inside and out.

And we find the meaning of our lives,

Yes,

As we maintain a sense of security and comfort and wellbeing for ourselves,

But also by taking that risk,

Taking that step into a path that has not been bridged or created before.

And in that,

The meaning of life is revealed to us.

For many of us,

The meaning of life is all about love.

It's all about love.

As we love,

The meaning of life is revealed.

Charles Schultz,

Who invented the Peanuts characters,

Including Lucy,

Which means he invented practitioner Carol Buxton's alter ego,

He said that happiness is anyone and anything that's loved by you.

James Thurber,

Another great humorist,

Has my favorite definition of love.

He says that love is what you've been through with somebody.

Love is what you've been through with somebody.

Kurt Vonnegut said the purpose of a human life is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Love,

I have learned in my life experience,

Is how the creative medium gets set into motion.

All these other emotions that we might call negative emotions,

They're not bad emotions.

They just don't create life.

Anger restricts life.

Fear avoids life.

Depression is an adversary to life.

It is only through love that we set our creative lives into motion.

And if you're feeling stuck in a relationship or in a circumstance or in a challenge,

Choose love,

And love will move you and your life forward.

Our founder,

Ernest Holmes,

Said that love is the sole principle of creation,

And the person who does not have love at the center of their life has lost touch with the creative principle.

As we love,

The meaning of life is revealed.

Just as when we seek to experience and express God's love,

God's love and presence is revealed in a wonderful and awesome way.

Philosophers tell us so much about the meaning of life,

And we can learn much about the meaning of life from psychologists as well,

Those people we read or go to see to help us find and discover the meaning of our life.

One version from Alfred Adler tells us that life has no meaning,

That the meaning is totally reliant on the individual.

I like this idea in the sense that I think we human beings are creatures of meaning.

That's part of the magic of our soul,

Is we articulate meaning.

And yet I disagree with Adler in the sense that I don't think we're separate from the meaning of life.

That's part of how we play and exist and co-create with this thing called life.

We are creators of meaning.

Whether we're revealing that meaning,

Discovering that meaning,

Inventing that meaning,

Or co-creating it with the divine power.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

Not in nature,

But in ourselves is all the beauty and worth we see.

He's not saying nature isn't beautiful,

But that's part of the human experience.

That beauty must be seen,

It must be witnessed,

It must be articulated to be fully embodied.

That's how sacred and important we are in this thing called life.

The meaning of it is up to you,

Not to make up,

But to co-create with that incredible power.

One practice I like to engage in,

And some of you know this about me,

Is I try to pick one experience each year that is a source of great meaning for me.

It doesn't have to be the dramatic event or the big achievement.

It can just be a moment that seeps meaning for my life.

For example,

October 2003,

It's just a few weeks from my birthday,

And I'm in the middle of my 23rd birthday,

The night my girlfriend and I officially broke up.

We had met when we were teenagers and chased after each other for a couple years,

Had a mini romance,

And didn't speak for three years,

Which in young adult years is 10 years.

And we reconnected and we quickly fell in love.

We moved in together for two years,

Which in young adult years is 25 years.

And I didn't realize how good I had it.

I had just started ministerial school,

And so I think she was really questioning if she wanted to follow this new age hippie on whatever path he was,

And where would that lead,

And what would that mean for her.

And so I moved out,

And it's the last night because I'm getting the last of my things,

And we sit down and we're talking,

And I'm just so upset.

I see the specialness of our relationship and don't want to give up on it.

I feel like I'm just a statistic going through the motions of another relationship that didn't work out,

And I'm carrying this,

I'm holding this small glass,

And I've got to do something to represent this anger,

And I'm not proud of it,

But I throw it across the room and it shatters all over the floor.

And we're quiet for about 60 seconds.

And then I get up.

I'm sorry,

I'll go get it.

No,

No,

No,

I'll get it.

No,

No,

No,

I'll get it.

Let me,

Let me.

No,

No,

I'll get it.

And we sweep up this broken glass symbolizing our relationship into the dustpan and put it into the sanctuary of a dumpster.

As I'm walking out on the porch,

She says to me,

Josh,

When it's nighttime and it's quiet and I'm holding you,

I love you more than anything.

What a thing to say when someone's shutting a door in your face.

For several years,

I thought that was just her nice way of saying she liked me best when I was asleep.

But over time,

I've come to realize that it's one of the most sacred and romantic things that anyone ever said to me.

Can I tell you every aspect of meaning that this circumstance taught me?

No,

But that's the great thing about the meaning of life is when we can view it from multiple perspectives at different times and points of our own growth and awareness and receive new found and profound meaning.

But you're not going to get it if you're not looking for it.

You're not going to get the meaning if you're not listening to your life.

You're not going to get the meaning that is available to you so deep that we could never fully comprehend it unless we do that work in our own consciousness and take the time to mine that beautiful and precious meaning.

Another psychologist,

Abraham Maslow,

Said that the meaning of life is in self-actualization.

What he means is if you're a writer,

You better write.

If you're a musician,

You better play.

If you're a painter,

You better paint.

Discover that art that is being who you are in your living and commit to it so fervently that not only will you achieve self-actualization,

But that very self-actualization will reveal to you the meaning of your very life and existence itself.

Another great psychologist,

Carl Rogers,

Said that the key is to accept ourselves not as products,

But as processes.

Not as fixed,

But as fluid.

When we make ourselves fixed,

When we consider ourselves always the same,

We put ourselves in a box.

We lose who we really are and what we really mean.

But when we embrace that there is this changeless reality in us,

But that we continue to grow and expand and change and transmute and we become malleable to this thing called life,

The meaning of life not only is something that we find all around us,

But it grows and expands and can be accepted within us.

Viktor Frankl said that there are three ways that we experience meaning.

I'm paraphrasing them.

The first is by serving a cause greater than ourselves.

Can you resonate with that?

The meaning of life comes to you when you serve a cause greater than yourself.

I am so grateful and so thankful when I think about all the people who serve at Mile High Church in so many different capacities.

And for me,

It's a wonderful source of the meaning of my life to serve in this incredible spiritual community.

The second way to experience meaning is by loving somebody.

Just loving somebody.

Think about the people in your life who you have had the honor of putting their needs above your own.

Oh,

There's all the meaning I need.

Getting to be a dad to two wonderful children has given me the meaning of my life.

How wonderful.

The third way to experience meaning,

Frankl tells us,

Is through suffering,

Through challenges,

Through tragedy,

Through struggle.

Not that these things are the meaning of life,

But they can help us transcend the meaning of life by helping us to realize that there is a power in us that is always greater than any challenge that may be taking place around us.

That inner resilience,

That inner light,

The truth of our individuality and the truth of our humanity struggles and challenges bring forth.

So,

Just three points before closing this morning.

Three things to remember.

One,

The meaning of life is up to you.

What I mean by that is that it's not yours to make up.

It's not whatever you choose it to be.

What I mean is that life needs you to articulate the meaning of life.

To experience the meaning of life.

To bask and be blessed and have epiphanies within the meaning of life.

And that this is the very meaning of our own existence.

Second,

The meaning of life includes dying.

It includes death.

And yet meaning is something eternal.

It's something that always is.

And in facing our own mortality or dealing with the mortality of those that we love,

It is most essential to remember that meaning never dies.

As Socrates once said,

People talk about death like it's a great curse,

But how do they know that in fact it may be life's greatest blessing?

Lastly,

Find meaning through embracing the adventure of your life.

Comfort and ease are wonderful things.

Safety and sanctuary,

Wonderful and essential things.

But so is living fully.

And living fully means challenges.

It means trials.

It means obstacles.

It means little failures.

But what it also means is finding the very heart of your life.

The very purpose of your path and indeed the very meaning of your life.

So going into prayer this morning,

I invite any of our incredible prayer practitioners who want to stand and join me.

They're available for prayer after service.

Just focusing on that place not only of unity and oneness within us,

But also that place of grand uniqueness.

A place where each of us has an ongoing relationship with sacred spirit,

With Mother Father God,

With the very truth of our beingness.

Let us open our heart,

Creating room for the sacred to speak.

It may not speak in words.

It may speak in feeling,

In images,

In a depth of understanding.

Allowing the spirit to announce itself in our heart,

We embrace not only our unity with all of life,

But our sacred and anointed uniqueness.

And in this practice,

In this experience,

We set forth in that adventure called our everyday life with a willingness not to see things the same old way,

But to see things renewed,

Refreshed.

Not only all around us,

But the sacredness of our very vision creates healing,

Love,

Harmony,

Reconciliation,

And joy.

Remembering all of those who have given themselves to that inner liberty,

That realization of freedom and of a divine love.

We are all part of the story of God's meaning in this thing called life.

May we embrace it,

May we embody it,

May we accept the spirit of play and creativity,

And with full seriousness live emphatically and with that clarity of that divine unity and uniqueness within us.

We let it be,

We let it become,

And so it is.

Amen.