A New Mix Provides Food For The Soul
How often in a day do you use words like “wisdom,” “purpose,” “soul,” “spiritual growth,” “mystery,” “joy” and “truth?” Not often enough, I would guess. As all of us struggle to live good lives, to purchase happiness, and to be part of the public dialogue around us, we get easily distracted from the search for meaning, a search that was, for many of us in our youth, the most important search of all.
Whether we fought in a war, or fought against it; whether we sought an active spiritual life or sought anything but traditional religion; whether we went to college or started working early to support a young family - no matter our circumstance, we yearned to know as young people what we were about, who we were, how we would contribute, what love we deserved, what portion of joy we could find. Out of life, even in our depressions, we wanted passion, love, meaning.
When I was a student at Gonzaga, getting my degree in philosophy and English, I thought meaning was something I would one day see, touch, hold onto. One day, I thought, I would read just the right book and “get it.” One day, I thought, I would read just the right philosopher and “get it.” One day, I thought, I would hook my life up to just the right religion or prophet and “get it.”
Years of adult living, loving, childraising, working, mentoring, writing, teaching and counseling have taught me that meaning is mysterious, it’s fluid, it’s ever changing, and therefore we need to concentrate on it with all our hearts and souls.
There is no single book, thinker or prophet who can give us the whole scoop. There is no single table at which we can eat the whole feast. There are many ideas, people, saints and banquets.
In this new column, I hope to provide a place for our community to come together to search for meaning. This is not a “religion” column in which one religious view is espoused. I hope we will exclude no one here. We all have a right to sit at the table and find food for the soul.
When I was a boy, my family lived in India, and then all over the United States. In my early adolescence, we spent a year on the Southern Ute reservation in New Mexico. As an adult, I’ve traveled and researched throughout Europe and the Middle East, living for two years in Turkey.
In all the places I’ve lived, worked or studied, I’ve met people who searched for meaning - for frameworks, insights and practices that would bring them close to themselves, their god, others and life’s feast.
In this column a look into your child’s eyes is part of the search for meaning, as is the smell of a flower, the taste of a soda after a long hot run. Sex and love are part of the search, as are abstinence and the fear of intimacy. Not only the sacred but also the shadow belongs in the search for meaning - not only our moments of grace, but also our moments of falling.
A person in prison holds some of the keys to meaning, as does a person we call saint or a hero. A person living on the streets holds some of the keys, as does the rich person whose office has a view of the whole town.<
Why do we suffer? Why do children die before their time? Why do old people scare so many of us? Why are we afraid to love?
These are the kinds of questions we will seek to answer here, these and hundreds of others - questions that keep us focused on wisdom (not just information), truth (not just “politics”), joy (not just information), spiritual growth (not just “a religion”), mystery (not just “ones to be solved”), and meaning (the word that has no single definition).
By answering these questions we will not find “the truth.” We will open more questions, and more questions, and many more that will give us focus for our individual and communal life journeys.
If this search interests you, I hope you’ll read this column, write me, and help these few inches of newsprint become a place where issues of the soul are discussed.
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