A dreary day in Rochester, NY, and it's Monday to boot! I'm taking a vacation day, and the hours stretch out before me with little of vital importance on the to-do list! What a treat! I think they call it Sabbath rest.
The weather is sort of Scottish-like...a damp but not really cold day, misty, with uniformly pale grey sky. It gets me thinking about my father, at 100 years old facing his mortality and wondering often why he's still alive....which in turn gets me thinking about purpose and meaning in life, and into my in-box pops the following from Joan Chittister:
Having a sense of purpose and meaning in life ranks high in the cluster of the commonplaces of happiness. No matter where we are on the economic chart, it’s knowing what we exist for that counts. No matter how mundane our gifts may seem to be, even to ourselves, the world will be the poorer without them, and we will be poorer, too, for not having given them as best we can. My life has meaning to every life I touch. It’s knowing that and living accordingly that counts.
Clearly, life does not give us meaning. Life has only the meaning we give it. Without a reason larger than myself for which to get out of bed in the morning, I am losing my life one day at a time, like water drops in an ocean, without so much as a ripple to show for it.
I invite you to take a moment or two this day, to stop what you're busy with, and wonder with me.....what do I/you exist for? And how does it impact 'every life I touch'? Sure, it's a bigger question that a moment or two's reflection might answer, but perhaps the act of stopping long enough to even ask the question might offer you some advent hope, and if we know the answer, stopping momentarily to remind ourselves of it may offer centering peace.
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