Significance and Relevance

 Significance and Relevance

As I grow older, I find myself with more and more questions and less and less answers. The thing is, these questions have become more important, significant, and relevant than ever. All my life, I’ve felt a sense of meaning and purpose weaving throughout each day and each connection. I think it is mostly because it is right there in my face all day, every day. My family, my wife, my kids, my job, the people I serve in my job (people with disabilities), the people I live with in my home in the neighborhoods where I have lived, mostly poor, mostly non-white, mostly very different from me; these have all been part of who I am and why I am hear. I can’t forget or turn away because when I open my eyes each day, there they are. When I look back I realize how much I loved that and how much I miss that. Now my kids are not around and I work from home so I see them and those I work with quite rarely. During COVID and because I’m working from home, those social connections, coworkers, clients have been limited. 

In the stillness and aloneness, the questions get louder and the answers fade away. Who am I? Why am I here? These two main questions are becoming more and more focused because the reminders of the answers are not standing before me competing for attention. In this stillness, I present myself to life, to the universe, crying out, here I am! Hineni! Here am I! 

Here am I, wondering what it is that I might be called to next.

But more importantly is Here and Now. 

Here am I, wondering who am I, Here and Now,

in this time of life, transitioning to retirement and on to death

as I continue to wonder about my own significance and relevance. 

Who am I now? Here and Now! Why am I here? Here and Now!?!

Waiting and wondering and wandering, watching as life comes my way.

Is life worth living?

We must not ask what someone told me or

what someone else's life is worth to them.

The question is not is your life worth living

and then listening to the pastor or philosopher or public servant

tell us about life and its worth.

Albert Camus calls this philosophical suicide,

where we hand over our meaning and purpose

to some higher authority or teacher

and let our answer be none

as we adopt the answers that we are told.

The question is not, "who do YOU say I am."

It is not, "what do you say my meaning and purpose are all about."

The only real question is:

Is MY life worth living???

If so, then that is what I shall do. If not, then what?

There is an incredible absurdity in the juxtaposition of 

humankind’s cry for meaning and 

the universe’s response of nothingness. 

Even the gods stand before this cry for meaning 

in silence and invisibility.

And yet here we stand, 

looking to the skies or 

looking into the abyss, 

looking into the intimidating vastness of life

expectantly expecting an answer

to what we so deeply need

so that we can keep going.

What we do not realize is that the universe and the gods will not give answers to something so personal and important as my own significance and relevance. The answers are within each person. How dare any proclaimed external authority proclaim to know my meaning and purpose, my reason for being. How dare anyone tell me that someone over there can tell me who I am and why I am here. 

Expecting to be told answers to such deeply important and personal questions is at least a cop out, but even more so, a diminishment of creation and its wisdom of which we are part. Everything that exists, except for human beings, already knows their significance and their relevance. Meaning and purpose are embedded into all of creation. These are things we already know, but have often forgotten. They have no question about what they must do Here and Now nor about what they must do tomorrow and into the future. Significance and Relevance are built into the stuff of the universe. It is the stuff of the gods. It is the stuff of all that is greater than me. Leaving us puny humans with identity and purpose in the Here and Now if we were to pay attention. What is that which we seek? It is what it is. It is what presents itself. It is right there in our faces just like it has been all of our lives; whether it be a child, an elder, a beggar, a neighbor, a stranger, or one of the least of these. They are there each and every day before us, showing us, teaching us who we are and why we are here.

For too long, I have been overthinking it.

We are exactly where we are meant to be.

Things come to us exactly when they are meant to be there.

And we choose to see, hear, and learn… or not.

I have no great and cosmic purpose. I’m just me.

I have no great and cosmic identity. I’m still just me.

I have no great and cosmic reason to be. 

It is what it is. It is that which is before me each and every day.

And hence, my response to the silence of the universe is: Hineni! Here am I!

And my response to all that which is greater than me is: Hineni! Here am I!

Not so much, here am I, send me. 

But rather here am I, waiting, watching, 

anticipating, knowing life is what it is. 

Life is that which comes, that which shows up. 

And here am I! Hineni!

I am beginning to understand that significance and relevance is just part of life as it is. And life is that which comes, that which shows up; Here and Now. I don’t have to make myself significant or relevant because it is embedded in my very being. Just like a tree or a bee, or the air that we breathe, it is part of what “I am”, part of “I am what I am”. I think that when I start losing my sense of meaning and purpose, significance and relevance, it is because I am overlooking it, searching past what is obvious. I’m working too hard at it. It has been there all the time. All I need to do is remember who I am and remember what I already know.

Hineni! Here am I! Fully present, fully alive, Here and Now.

Such smallness. Such greatness. Such humility. Such dignity.

Leaving me knowing that I am who I am;

Nothing more, nothing less 

than anything else 

in my world and this universe.

“The meaning of life is to be alive.

It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.

And yet everybody rushes around in a great panic as if

it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

(Alan Watts)

* Hineni is a Hebrew word that has two parts. Hineh means here and Ani means I. The modern Hebrew word for here is Po, which means “here” in the sense of attendance or role call. But Hineni is “here” in the sense of a deep and waiting presence. Sometimes it is translated as “Behold!” Hineni is used in the Torah as a deeply rooted and authentic response to God in a way that is almost a form of worship in the sense of being ready, willing, waiting, and listening. Hineni has also been used by God in response to a person’s outcry. For me, it is a very profound response to life and to the universe as a nontheist, a human response to that which is greater than me.

Bedrock of Being

 Bedrock: what’s left at the bottom?

What’s left when life’s dross is burnt off?

What’s left when the non-essentials are stripped away?

What happens when simplicity goes all the way down; leaving nothing but the essentials.

Once I go all the way down, what are the bare necessities; the essence of existence?

There seems to be a cultural prejudice against “down”

But when all of our striving is upward, we lose our essence, our source, our Ground of Being.

And it is only from a downward position that I can “occupy my life to the edges.”

"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline)

For me, when I began blogging 15 years ago, little did I know that I had begun such a journey, that it had become the beginning of my unraveling, unlearning, uprooting of everything that I thought was tested and true; the ending of life as I knew it. Today, as it continues, I had no idea how far it would go.

But I’m still committed to follow the truth, no matter where it leads. 

I am left with a profound groundlessness that I am still getting used to; 

a groundlessness that is not rooted in other people’s stories of the past, 

a groundlessness that is not rooted in other people’s graven mental constructs and images of god, 

a groundlessness that is real and not conjured up for the sake of comfort, security, and certainty, 

a groundlessness that is now my "ground of being" that has set me free... to be and to live in a reality consisting only of "what is".

Permanency

If your knowledge of fire has been turned to certainty by words alone, 

then seek to be cooked by the fire itself. 

Don't abide in borrowed certainty. 

There is no real certainty until you burn; 

if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.

Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (1207-1273)

“Transience is the force of time that makes a ghost of every experience. There was never a dawn, regardless how beautiful or promising, that did not grow into a noontime. There was never a noon that did not fall into afternoon. There was never an afternoon that did not fade toward evening. There never was a day yet that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night. In this way transience makes a ghost out of everything that happens to us.”
— John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

We build our lives around permanency. Retirement savings is assumed to be permanent security. Homes and families are built on the human construct of permanency. Careers, income, and possessions . . . all create a sense of permanency.

I wonder why that is? We know that nothing is permanent. We trick ourselves into believing that stuff is permanent. But down deep we know it is not. We’ve seen it.

Everywhere, everything is dying. Flowers, grass, people, skin … everything is dying and making way for new life. New life is only possible if things are in constant flux, constantly changing, dying. New creation and new life come from chaos and death. This is the way the world is designed.

Death as an Ally

“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.”
— James Baldwin

Saint Benedict said, “Daily keep your death before your eyes.” 

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

In the face of death, the straw man burns. When I realize that “no one gets out of here alive”, not even me, it makes me stop and wonder, really question, what am I doing, who am I, and what am I leaving behind . . . because no matter what, I am leaving. Nothing is permanent, including me. Nothing. So why do I cling so tightly to social status, to possessions, to money, to my home, to my family, to my life??? And on a level deeper yet, why do I cling so tightly to my loves, my desires, my abilities, my strengths, my gifts… for nothing is permanent… it all fades away.

Do I fear death so much that it makes me shun silence in this life? From silence I came. To silence I will return. But while I’m here, I make noise as much and as continuously as I can. I stay busy, I keep moving . . . Smell the roses? What roses? Take time? I don’t have time. I have to get here, get there; “too many people to see, too many places to go, too many ways to get there” (Lyrics by Bill Cooper).

Do I fear silence because it brings me face to face with reality, with me, with my end, and the silence thereof?

Why do I fight? Why do I fight what is inevitable? Why do I fear what is inevitable? I don’t fight the air that I breathe. I don’t fight the sunshine. I don’t fight the wind passing through my hair. Why do I fight the great circle of life as the old things pass away to make way for the new?

“Death fertilizes the imaginal and works to open a poetic space that brings depth and meaning to everyday life” (Stanton Marlan, The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness, 76)

Death is part of life.

Death gives way to new life.

The autumn leaves fall and decay

to make way for the spring leaves.

The flower falls to make way for new buds.

Why linger when there is no longer a reason for life?

Let go and let come.

That is the key to all of life.

Let go and let come. Befriend all of life.

Embrace the darkness so that I can fully appreciate the light.

Embrace the cold so that I can fully appreciate the warmth.

Embrace death so that I can fully appreciate life. “The living should take this to heart” while we can.

“An awareness of death is an ally for infusing our lives with a sense of immediacy, perspective, and proportion. In acknowledging the reality of death, we can more fully appreciate our gift of life.” (p. 121, Voluntary Simplicity, Duane Elgin)

IMMEDIACY: Making death an ally makes me realize that what I say is not as important as what is seen in my life. I must join soul and role, words and actions.

PROPORTION: I don’t need the lion’s share, I only need my daily bread. I’m not the center of the universe, I’m a grain of sand on the beach of the universe. It is not about me.

PERSPECTIVE: It is not about accomplishing things, it is about being. What I accomplish in this life is a chasing after the wind. Who am I? Who am I really?

“We need but look into the cemetery and see the ten thousand upturned faces; ten thousand breathless bosoms. There was a time when fire flashed through those vacant orbs; when warm ambitions, hopes, joys, and the loving life pushed in those bosoms. Dreams of fame and power once haunted those empty skulls . . .. Approach the tomb of the proud man; see the haughty countenance dreadfully disfigured, and the tongue that spoke the most lofty things condemned to eternal silence . . .. Behold the consequences of intemperance in the tomb of the glutton; see his appetite now fully satiated, his senses destroyed and his bones scattered” (p. 590 of the book, The Royal Path of Life, 1877 as quoted by Duane Elgin in Voluntary Simplicity).

https://youtu.be/eog8csgE1N4 

“We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.”
— John O’Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

When O'Donohue says "home" I see this as referring to being where we belong, where we all go after death in a very inclusive and humanistic way; probably joining the rest of nature in the dirt, or fire and ashes, without any consciousness or awareness. But, who knows, maybe somewhere that death takes us as so many of our human myths say. Who knows? Who cares? What will be... will be. What is... is.

Let's face the monster in the closet and see that the closet is only a closet and stop creating monsters to be afraid of in death so that death can be a part of the circle of life, nothing more, nothing less.

Conquering this monster illusion in death also shatters our facade in life. We hide because we fear that which we do not understand; the unknown, the different, etc. Living without fear, without hiding, is very freeing. It lets us live lives that are real, natural, and human.

Please click here: https://youtu.be/eog8csgE1N4 

See also:

Silence: a spiritual discipline

Permanency

Die Before You Die

“You have to die a few times before you can really live.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

It is one thing to know this is truth.
It is another thing completely to actually live it.

A few years ago, I chose to live it in a very different sort of way; by stepping out of the rat race, slowing down so I can focus on what is most important in my life.

And that has made all the difference.

Enough talking about stress and the rat race.
Enough talking about wants and desires, longings and hopes; inaccessible stuff that is out there somewhere.

Inner peace and joy are already within; accessible by choosing and doing.

Time to reconnect to life and people in a whole new way.

 Die Before You Die

Life is less about the living
and more about the day by day
quality and depth of our dying.

For it is only when a seed
lets go and is let go of,
falls to the ground and dies,
is buried and cracks open,
It is then and only then,
that transformation and birth
of new life can come forth.

“The Mystery of ‘Die before you Die’ is this:
That the gifts come after your dying and not before.
Except for dying, you artful schemer,
No other skill impresses God. One Divine gift
Is better than a hundred kinds of exertion.
Your efforts are assailed from a hundred sides,
And the favor depends on your dying.
The trustworthy have already put this to the test.”
(Jalaluddin Rumi)

For from the very moment we are born
we begin to die.
All of life is a day by day process
of letting go… and letting come…

“Do you know what it means to come into contact with death, to die without argument? Because death, when it comes, does not argue with you. To meet it, you have to die every day to everything: to your agony, to your loneliness, to the relationship you cling to; you have to die to your thought, to die to your habit, to die to your wife so that you can look at your wife anew; you have to die to your society so that you, as a human being, are new, fresh, young, and you can look at it. But you cannot meet death if you don’t die every day. It is only when you die that there is love. A mind that is frightened has no love, it has habits, it has sympathy, it can force itself to be kind and superficially considerate. But fear breeds sorrow, and sorrow is time as thought. So to end sorrow is to come into contact with death while living, by dying to your name, to your house, to your property, to your cause, so that you are fresh, young, clear, and you can see things as they are without any distortion. That is what is going to take place when you die... So one has to live every day dying, dying because you are then in contact with life.”

– Krishnamurti, The Book of Life