The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

How Then Shall We Live?

by Kate Lore

UUCS July 8, 2007

Unitarian Universalism has never had a creed: we uphold the right of each person to seek truth and to express it according to his or her own conscience. The fourth of our seven principles clearly states this: We affirm each other’s need to pursue a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.  And that’s what I’m going to discuss today: truth and meaning.  More specifically, I’m going to discuss “the meaning of life” and share with you some insights that emerged from my own examination of the topic and from the Brown Bag discussion held here on this topic just a couple of weeks ago.

 I first decided to write a sermon on this topic after contemplating one of Paul Gauguin’s most famous paintings, “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”  I have several small prints of this painting that I’m going to ask Michelle to start circulating.  In it you’ll see three phases of life which you should read right to left, instead of the more typical left to right.  Now I originally heard this painting described in a sermon delivered last spring by the Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  So I want to credit her with initiating this whole line of questioning.  Thank you, Marilyn Sewell!

But now, back to Gauguin. . .   I imagine that most of you are familiar with this artist, but just in case your memory needs jostling, he is most famous for his colorful paintings of life in Tahiti .  If you can recall in your mind’s eye any works of art featuring topless brown-skinned women and tropical scenes, it is likely a work by Gauguin. 

As a person, Gauguin was a life-long sufferer of depression – not uncommon with the gifted amongst us.  And the painting that is being passed around was considered by him to be his greatest.  This work was so significant and so precious, in fact, that Gauguin vowed that he would commit suicide following the completion of this painting—though he did not do so.  He said of the painting, “I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but that I shall never do anything better.”

The title of this painting (Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) raises the questions that  have plagued philosophers and theologians for centuries.  But to really understand the painting, we must remember the context in which it was created.  Gauguin painted it just as the Industrial Revolution was transforming life as it had been known.   This was a time when people had left the land and moved to the cities, working in factories, to make things, to work for other people, to punch time clocks set by companies rather than moving to the rhythms of nature.

Gauguin himself was chafing under the changes that came with the Industrial Revolution—he longed for an unspoiled natural environment, where he could live the life of an artist.  Leaving his wife and five children, he went first to Paris , to several other tropical locations, and then finally to Tahiti , where his most important work was done.  He died at the age of 54, of syphilis, his body weakened by alcoholism.  His wonderful paintings—and those haunting questions he posed—remain. 

We—like this gifted and troubled man—share that eternal quest for meaning.  Our old, “pre-Industrial Revolution” understandings of God no longer serves us well.  We can no longer count on an all-powerful and righteous God up in the sky who will lead us through the desert of these difficult times.  No. Simple understandings of the Holy don’t work for us anymore either.  And since little at hand these days seems noble or trustworthy anymore, those of us existing in contemporary America are longing for meaning as perhaps no people ever have. 

Let’s talk for a moment about death because how we view death and how we internalize this knowing, can transform our living.   Wayne Muller, a minister and therapist who works closely with dying people, recounts the following experience.  He was speaking with a man named Paul, about a week before Paul’s death. One day he came upon Paul sitting up in bed, propped against a mound of pillows, silent, in the rays of the morning sun.  “I feel ready to go,” Paul said finally.  “But sometimes,” he reflected, “I just wish I had more time.”  His voice carried both sadness and acceptance.   

“I’ve done so much work to prepare for this moment,” he said.  “I’ve . . . practiced meditation with some wonderful teachers, and I have been loved by many beautiful people.  I’m not unhappy with my life.  I’m not afraid.  I know it is time.”  He hesitated, and then spoke again.  “But I also wish I could stay here,” he said.  “I wish I had ten more years free of this illness.”

“What would you do with those years if you had them?” Muller asked. “What would your life look like?”

Paul paused, and then he spoke: “I would be kind,” Paul said.  “I would live my life with kindness.”

Muller says that when he visits with people who have received a diagnosis of terminal illness, they are suddenly shocked into mindfulness.  What have I done?  What is my life about?  Who do I love?  What do I place at the center of my life?  With so little time left, there is none to waste.  Muller suggests that when people are looking death in the face, suddenly childhood trauma seems less compelling; money seems useful for daily needs, but greed seems silly; unproductive relationships are let go; and intricate career moves seem wasteful--even comical. 

Those close to death are instantly aware that their remaining time is precious and their choices are pregnant with meaning.

When I met with UUCS members at the Brown Bag discussion last month, I asked them to name one thing that gave their life a sense of meaning.  This is what they said: fresh air, gardening, the natural world, relationship with people and pets, family, music and being of service.  One person, who shall remain anonymous but who shares my first name said, “Chocolate.”

What about you?  What gives your life a sense of purpose and meaning?  Is it art?  Friends?  Family? Books?  If I were to answer the question, it would be “connections.” Connections with people, the natural world and the divine—in all of its many manifestations.  If it is true that you are what you love, then I guess I am made up of you, and all people (even the conservative ones), and I am made up of sunsets and rainstorms, art and poetry, raging waters and still canyons, protest marches and songs shared, and all those experiences that have shaped me.  Perhaps this is what Buddhist monk Thick Nhat Hahn means when he describes our “interbeing.”  Perhaps it is true that who we are is the sum total of innumerous strands in the web of life.  We are the sun that nourishes our food and the field workers who harvest that food.  We are the truck driver who transports our food to our communities and we are the dinosaurs who provided the petroleum to fuel those trucks.  Yes, I think it’s true: we are a culmination of all things—perceived and unperceived.  Or as some of the scientifically oriented people in our Brown Bag discussion concurred: we are all energy and mass which is indestructible.  We just keep changing form, over and over again.  Think about THAT one for a while!

So if we are indeed a compilation of innumerable connections, what then are the implications of where it is we come from and where it is that we shall we go when we die?  When I raised this question to the group, the answers seemed to fall into two categories:1) We were nothing before we were born and will return to nothingness when we die; and 2) We all came from a loving, life-giving source, and we shall return to that source upon our death.  But with both groups of people, the image that seemed to resonate most was what that of an ocean.  We emerge as a drop of water from a vast ocean that defies all time and space and then, upon our death, we return to that ocean—to be reabsorbed, so to speak.  Does that metaphor work with you?  Whether your answer is yes or no, I invite you to share your views at the conclusion of this sermon when we take some time for a congregational response.

Yes, living with the felt knowledge of our mortality can indeed give us a powerful context for answering questions of meaning.  But of course hardly anyone really does this on a regular basis, the exceptions being those who have had a close call with death, and Buddhist monks who meditate on their own deaths to bring intentionality to their living. 

In fact, what most of us do is to push our fears underground, into the unconscious.  As Jungian James Hollis said in a recent workshop, “Most of our behavior is about anxiety control.” And what are our chief sources of anxiety control?  Distraction, says Hollis.  “Popular culture is a vast form of distraction.”  Other sources are routines and addictions, he says.  And what all these forms of anxiety control have in common is that they allow us to escape our feelings. 

Our challenge then—emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually—is to do nothing about our suffering—that is, to experience our suffering.  This is what meditation is about: being with our internal experience, and knowing that we are all right, that we don’t have to escape.  And so we are brought more fully into our lives, in the present moment.

Some of you have come here today wanting to hear the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?”  You don’t really think I know, do you? 

I can tell you, though, a few wrong and disappointing roads to avoid.  One is the road to personal perfection or purity—you know, getting rid of everything that is wrong with us, all of our flaws of character.  When we deprive expression of our shadow sides, if we deny these parts of ourselves and hold them underground, they can surface in powerful and painful ways.  No, we must learn to recognize both our virtues and our shortcomings and then rest in the health that comes in balancing these parts of ourselves.   So out with Puritanism and in with balance!

Another fruitless path is the cognitive approach—thinking, reading, and listening to wise people talk.  Not that there’s anything wrong with these things—some of the nicest people I know still think, read, and listen—but the cognitive will take you only so far.  You will not find the meaning of your life through thinking, through logic.  Does this sound like a strange thing to say to a UU audience?  Perhaps, but please hear me out.

When we choose to give up our distractions, when we chose to sit with our suffering, when we have no place else to go except ourselves, then we are ready to begin to really “know.”  This is because in so doing, we come at last to the Mystery, and we are there with all our naked longing.  With our anger at injustice.  With our sadness at our own failures and our losses.  With all desire stripped away except the yearning:  With my own yearning comes the plea: “Make me an instrument of your peace.  Make me a conduit of your love. What am I called to do?  How am I called to live?”  Then the answer comes.  Your answer will not be the same as mine or anyone else’s—because you are unique in this universe, unique and precious.

Still, you can expect that the answer will come from within, the dwelling place of the Holy, and the answer is always, ever the same.  The answer is always, “Yes.”  Because you are in the heart of love when you ask, the answer is always yes.  Yes, you are good.  Yes, take the risk.  Yes, be thankful.  Yes, choose life. 

Are you waiting for some clarity on what I’ve just said?  Forget it!  There will be none.  This is because there will always be something that eludes you.  And it doesn’t matter.  Viktor Frankl in his profound classic Man’s Search for Meaning speaks of his time in a concentration camp, and what he learned from that experience.   He writes:  “We had to learn . . . that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.  We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.  Our answer must not be in talk . . . but in right action and in right conduct… ”   Or, as the participants in our Brown Bag discussion concurred, we must find our own ways in which to practice the Golden Rule . . . always.  For it is in treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves that we honor our connection, our Oneness.

All in all, I’ve come to the conclusion that we ultimately take our meaning in life from what we love.  And we take courage from the same source, because when you know what you love, a kind of light falls upon it, and you know with astounding clarity the way you should go. 

It matters not if you call yourself a Christian or a Humanist, a Jew or a Muslim, an atheist or an agnostic.  It matters not whether you kneel to pray or use prayer beads or wouldn’t be caught dead using the word prayer.  

What matters is what is being asked of you, right now.  What meaning of the heart is pulling you to what action?  And as we discern the answers to these questions, let us remember that we don’t need to judge others along the way.  We just need to allow our own particular beauty and goodness to unfold, all the time staying in touch with that Center that will be our sure and steady guide. 

So--where do we come from?  What are we?  Where are we going?  We don’t know.  We can only know what Love asks of us, and be content to live deeply in the Mystery.

So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we ask for nothing less than fullness of life.  We admit that we too often waste these precious hours and days in distraction from what is real.  Remind us what is of value, tell us what love demands of us, give us the courage to answer.   Amen.

BENEDICTION

As you go through this day, and every day, ask the single question, “What does love demand of me, right now?”  Go in love and go in peace.  Amen.