The Best Purpose of All

The common human dilemma is purpose. We seek meaning for life and when there is no significance our motivation duck-dives and hopelessness strangles us.

Paradoxical is our fear; we struggle with enduring the length of our journeys but we never want life to end in our deaths. Both of these realities, the fact of our lives and the imminence of our deaths, are beyond our control. But there is a purpose that captures the essence of both fears, converting negativity into positivity:

“Blessed is he who keeps the moment of death ever before his eyes and prepares for it every day.”

~Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471)

When we interweave the fact of death’s imminence with the existential concern of our lives, we find the best purpose of all. This purpose as our modus operandi, provided it’s kept front of mind, will always mean our lives will have significance.

Death and Truth

Because death is inevitable and so enshrined in truth, when we refuse to deny its inevitability we stand powerfully on the side of truth. If we, therefore, envision that death may occur today, and not in 10,000 days time, we’re profitably restrained by the truth. It captures our focus. It forces us to view our present reality as all we have. It’s all we’ll want to have.

The imminence of our deaths brings the best out in us, if we can get past the morbid curiosity of how our deaths will actually occur. The ‘how’ is not important. The thought of ‘when’ is. Like we’re ever more attentive at the climax of a movie, the whole of our lives gain ever more meaning-for-context in the view of our deaths.

As far as truth is concerned death is a hard fact to beat—both for its eventuality and its vehicular ability to carry us onward in purpose. We make the most of the last minute.

When Push Comes to Shove

An awful fact of human psychology is this: unless we’re pushed, stretched by a challenge, most of us will struggle to be sustainably motivated.

We may live comfortable lives in many ways, but that sense of comfort increases our anxiety, for we know we can achieve more, and be happier, if we’re pressed to achieve the goal. The best purpose of all provides healthy motivation that has us always looking forward within the present moment.

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The best purpose of all provides motive, meaning and hope. It’s stayed in efficient use of the present moment; it’s all we have. When we consider the possibility of no longer having it, the present looms more awesome than ever. Carpe Diem!

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

When Confusion Reigns

There are times when we’re perplexed beyond the moment’s hope. All thinking has stopped and all that remains of our conscious beings is feeling—estranged feeling. When confusion reigns within, even for one minute, we can panic or get angry or become sad. We don’t experience peace at these times.

But we can.

We can, if we avail upon ourselves the possibility that in all situations there can be peace. But peace can come only when our self-imposed pressure is reduced.

The Occurrence Of Lost Days

Many of our days are lost in many different ways. There’s something inexplicable about the lost day—that period of time where we’re far from our perfect selves. When we accept these horrible days for what they are, without analysing them too much, just enduring them, we learn something about ourselves and life.

We learn we’re free to do this—that we’re free to struggle—that struggling, in many ways, is acceptable—if we can deem it as acceptable.

There must be some answer to situations of life where confusion reigns. One day we’re sad, the next we achieve a great deal, and the following day we’re frustrated. Every day is different; some are brighter than others, whilst others are contemptible.

Maybe the honest life, one taken at authentic face value, is a lot less thoroughly perfect than we’d pretend, or like, it to be. In any one week there may be just two really good days. Two or three may be ambivalent experiences. And two or three may be woeful. Which ones are the lost days? We might only learn from the ambivalent or woeful days. The lost days may actually be the really good ones.

What To Do With Confusion

Our starting point was poignant. There are times when our thinking goes AWOL. Whether what’s caused it is overload, or a troubled relationship, or an unexplained reason matters little. The important thing is how we might pour God’s grace over ourselves and diminish the pressure such that our right minds may, of their own time, return.

On any of our not-so-good days we may easily fall into the trap of getting frustrated with ourselves for the sadness or anger or incapacity we feel. But such frustration won’t do us any good. It will only make things worse.

Reducing the pressure, particularly self-imposed pressure, is the order of the day. Times like these our feelings devoid of thinking need to ensure we protect ourselves.

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We have no reason to expose ourselves when we’re vulnerable. On sad, mad or bad days it’s fine to accept what is, and reduce the pressure on ourselves. A strange peace can be felt at such times because we’re being gentle with ourselves.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Everything Good Takes Time

Everything of value will require its time for investment, for nurturing, for completion.

The trouble comes when there are too many good things to do at once. Panic strikes, or a resentful resolve to fight stoically through persists. We want all our good things at once, and, especially in the light of modern convenience, we foresee what can be claimed and we want it, badly. And there’s so much of it. We’re force-fed and much of this force-feeding isn’t good for us. It doesn’t make us any happier; it actually prolongs our emptiness.

We’re apt to live lives where patience is aborted and grappling with anything and everything becomes mainstream. We forget, very easily, the following truth:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

... a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to throw away.”

~Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6 (NRSV)

Life – A Place Where No Comfortable Destination Exists

As the ancient teacher, Qoheleth, above, suggests life is comprised of seasons. We each have our winters and summers and those between. Over the expanse of life we do get to touch comfort, and we feel blessed. Then soon another season gently sweeps in. We go from comfort and quiet harvest, to lack and a degree of soul-searching.

Life requires us to “throw away” what we’ve previously deemed as precious. It seems so unfair.

We’re tempted by, and may fall into, resentment. ‘Why has this good life passed me by? Things were so good, so neatly perfect, so surreal, two years ago.’ Or, ‘I’ve been working hard at this for years, without the results I’m expecting. When will things turn?’ These and many more questions, we ask. Most of our lives are spent unsatisfied if we expect happiness as a destination and to be there every day.

No comfortable, self-actualised place exists, for any length of time at least.

When we join with our budding realism a sense for what is before us, what lies still in the future, we can approach happiness today independent of how we feel regarding our achievements or what we don’t yet have.

For Those Having Just Started Anything Significant

The commencement of the journey is always tremulous. Not many of us thrive salaciously on a challenge requiring great work, passion, initiative, and diligence. We’re mostly daunted by the thought of such attributes. We easily forget it was our faith that got us to this point, and God’s faithfulness has seen us through.

Starting anything significant, or being a significant distance away from the completion of it, is only daunting if we polarise on what we don’t have rather than on what we have. Entertaining the idea that our lack can produce its own happiness opens us up to a spiritual conquest few are prepared to make.

In the process we will find Patience.

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Patience is the path to blessing in the happiness we feel even as we lack, for patience knows and accepts that everything good takes time.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Douglas J. Hoffman.

Poems for Brokenness

Good Friday is the perfect time to reflect upon our brokenness in the sight of Jesus’ brokenness for us on the cross of Calvary. In our neediest of times we can identify with our God who became nothing for us. His nothingness is authentically representative of the state of our nothingness. We have a God who can identify with our every need, sorrow and emptiness.

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The Saviour never sinned,

Yet died to cover all,

In the grace that came;

The forgiveness call.

Such a gift that is,

Endowed with love,

Is for us to accept,

From the Father above.

***

Jesus took the cup of wrath—

Humanity’s cause—

Satisfying cosmic aftermath;

Life defining,

After the scourge,

No need for refining,

Redemptive merge.

***

Profoundest miracle,

Changed attitude of heart,

That by which,

A renewed life to start.

Jesus’ fullness—

Only can sate,

Surrender to Him now,

At Salvation’s gate.

***

Feeling rotten and all confused,

Why is this begotten and not diffused?

Unparalleled—the pain—the life we’ve seen,

Oh, the desire to just feel clean.

Guilt for which we no longer need bear,

Because it’s a fact Jesus does care,

No matter the past, upon solemn state,

We now have destiny at Salvation’s gate.

***

For feelings of emptiness, why we do not know,

Sometimes for which we do not wish to show,

Terrible and ghastly, but inexplicable to boot,

How do I possibly get right down to the root?

Now, such despairing has its answer in this:

Finding our Jesus—somehow, bliss!

Beyond understanding our prayers have fixed,

Those feelings of emptiness, for life that’s mixed.

***

A position, a state, lines of derision,

Contending within, thoughts of division,

Anger increases beyond help it seems,

There’s now only One for which peace redeems.

God’s the Higher Power putting a stop,

To thoughts and feelings all a rot,

But somehow we must, within our minds allow,

That invisible power which God wishes to endow.

***

Basking within our pride unawares,

Soon we become a person that despairs,

Somehow we’ve learned this lesson before,

Now we come again to Salvation’s door.

Humility enough to repent before God,

Our brokenness restored—we receive his nod,

Nothing like the feeling white as snow,

That by which with confidence we go.

***

Brokenness is only the first part of the story. The next bit—the final word—is best. It belongs to God, who gifts it to us. None of our brokenness is beyond God’s healing touch.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Terry George.

The Emptiness In the Unscathed

As I read stories of child sexual abuse and the like, I struggle to identify with that pain, much like people who’ve never been divorced, for instance, might struggle to identify with mine. Pain becomes a very personal thing.

We all have a suite of pain, yet most of us have had pretty normal lives.

When we’ve no ‘extraordinary’ story to tell, however, our lack of purposeful emptiness presents us with an emptiness nothing can touch. The emptiness of the relatively unscathed, those well-adjusted and functioning adults everywhere in our world, is poignant.

They do not feel special, just perhaps average. Is there anything worse than feeling just average? Like a featureless number? Like someone not worth caring much about?

An Unnamed Pain

This unnamed pain belongs to countless thousands, and, though it’s unparalleled in its commonness, we never feel quite as isolated. Isolation works suchlike: we’re in effused manipulation devoid of the full truth, tricked by ourselves and what we ‘lack’. What we feel, the emptiness of the unscathed, is a central part of the human condition.

We carry this unnamed pain of spiritual disconnection with ourselves and to our world silently; without umbrage. But in solemn moments it grinds away at our minds, paralyses our hearts for feeling, and erodes at our souls.

We receive such pain as a consequence of not having been scarred in a life that scars us all.

What We Never Think To Do

In the normality of life, we never think of what we have as much as what we don’t have. We look at those who are admired for the conquests they’ve made of their lives and our admiration sits astride a knife’s edge—we’re quickly envious. We’d never want their pain, the depth of their affliction they’ve gloriously overcome, yet climbing within us is the feeling of, ‘If only I’d done something so terrific with my life!’

It’s normal to think and feel these ways, particularly in our world of hyper-exposure and media-glam, but knowing this doesn’t seem to help much.

How We Matter To God

One day all that happened to us and all we achieved will have no significance or consequence. One day it will be meaningless. One day there’ll be no comparisons and certainly no envy or inferiority.

We gain great comfort in troubling moments of emptiness to know we matter to God—despite our pasts, or who we are, or what we’ve achieved. Just as we do matter and have mattered, we will always matter to God.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Drawing Meaning From Our Day

Depressing thoughts of ‘what did I get out of today?’ and ‘how much more do I have to do?’ prove haunting. They come and they go and some days are worse, by far, than others. A lingering thought may last and prevail itself over the hours. As we look back, fatigued and numbed, we pray for a better tomorrow. ‘Please God, help!’

Drawing meaning from our days is an incredibly important vehicle in maintaining our mental health.

How Might We Draw Meaning?

Considering some of the following, we can draw meaning, and be thankful and genuinely at peace with ourselves:

þ     We woke up. We take this for granted. We always do. That’s okay. But to make the most of our lives, we appreciate the small mercies in with the not-so-small.

þ     We clothed ourselves and ate, protecting and maintaining our bodies. Providing for ourselves is no small thing. It’s another thing we take for granted.

þ     We considered the capacity before us; our plans, if we had them, we pondered.

þ     Rest might have been part of our plan and, if so, did we achieve it? If we didn’t, there’s always tomorrow or some day next week. If we must rest, let’s rest. Sabbath is a command of God, and for good reason.

þ     If there was a plan, and we acted upon the plan, we were sure to have achieved at least part of it. Do we now take time to celebrate that part already done? We should...

þ     In our interactions with people we had some that went well, some okay, and some that went poorly. In reflecting we can do more of what we did well, improve what was okay, and repair that which went poorly. It’s never too late to do better tomorrow.

þ     Perhaps we achieved something we didn’t expect to achieve. The commencement of our day didn’t foresee this. And we’re glad. Life seems easier just now because of what we’ve just put behind us or at least commenced.

þ     Then tomorrow beckons. Tomorrow gives us much meaning regarding today. Our view of tomorrow even gives our view of today its perspective. Tomorrow is hope and today is reality. Maybe we can borrow from tomorrow and enjoy what we’ve done today.

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Drawing meaning from our day provides hope for tomorrow. It gives us feedback with which to learn and grow. It gives us reason to celebrate. Most of all, drawing meaning from our day helps us remember to be thankful.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Why Am I Doing This?

What a mighty fine, self-reflective question this one is! To be in a state of doing something where we’re aware enough to quietly converse with ourselves is genius regarding self-account. Life situations can only end better as a result.

Think about it. We all want the key to mastering life; just to make life more genial, palatable, and enjoyable. Having the awareness and the will to ask ‘Why am I doing this?’ is distinctive competence—it’s proving we can cope with our moments and adjust accordingly. The question has extensions—‘Why am I doing this, this way... at this time... with these people, etc?’

Asking such questions is a sound process on the way to a good vision—enhancing our capability.

Able To Do AND Think Within Ourselves At The Same Time

The most capable people have the ability to do what they need to do, and also reflect in their moments, regarding their actions, as they’re doing their things. They hold two critical elements of life, within grasp and actualisation, simultaneously.

This is not multitasking. It’s about applying reflective thought in the moment. It’s adjusting on-the-fly. It’s taking the situation and people’s responses into account, regarding our actions, midstream, and using such feedback to fine tune what we’re doing; not waiting until it’s too late.

This may or may not sound impossible, and certainly difficult to do, but where we have a vested interest in the result it’s not difficult to develop the motive to master it.

This is simply about employing our interest, raising our antennae, broadening our observant gaze, upon life.

The Value Of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is not being critical about people or ourselves; it’s thinking critically, using our analytical minds to learn what can be learned.

Asking questions like ‘Why am I doing this, this way... at this time... with these people, etc?’ frequently enough helps us master key coping and adjustment skills, which provides great mental, emotional, and spiritual value for any person employing it. Critical thinking is a commitment to identify and use the available truth—and it’s to our advantage.

Of course, critical thinking is a skill of higher order college or university thinking. It expands our capacity to learn and, therefore, to live life abundantly.

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There’s power for living in asking reflective questions of ourselves. Imagine being able to change our minds, or to do things differently, before regret sets in. Life gets better when we regularly ask, ‘Why am I doing this, this way... at this time... with these people, etc?’

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

When the Sadness Strikes

Sadness isn’t always readily apparent, but frustration, annoyance and anger or pretending to be happy when we’re not may often be. Sadness, potentially, underlies the negative emotions of life. These are times when we cannot control life, and, beyond the logical mind that knows that control isn’t the point, we still want to control it. These are times when we’re devoid of protection to deny; when we’re stripped bare; when we take things honestly but painfully. Yes, when we take pretence away, the soul unembellished, there is sadness. And we can grow to welcome it.

This, we don’t need to run from.

This, we don’t need to fear.

Touching this is part of our healing—an ongoing process with no ultimate destination this side of eternity. We can only hope we remain open enough when negativity strikes, because sadness will often underpin it. Sadness seeks consolation. We can console ourselves and seek the consolation of others.

Digging Deeper Down To Our Sadness

There’s plenty of theory suggesting we have repressed selves where experiences too dark were tidily shelved away, because we had no way to cope with them, or because we were told they were too dirty—causing us to shamefully forget them.

Deep within our unconscious minds, no matter how well-adjusted our upbringings were, resides a meaningful sadness that invites us to touch it. Doing such a thing, however, requires a rudimentary, tenacious sort of courage. Things buried so deep were put there because of the pain involved. But having the courage to go down there—something all of us are capable of—is to be richly rewarded.

Digging deeply down to our sadness, reliving the darkest areas of our lives, redeems a feature of life we can acknowledge if we choose to. Nothing there is rightfully shameful or guilt-inflicting, though we may feel these very emotions. Logically, we spend time accepting those parts of ourselves we’re most sad about.

Other Things Revealing Sadness

Many of our most negative emotions are a cover for deeper sadness; anger, anxiety, even pretentious happiness.

These negative emotions are a trigger for deeper exploration.

When we’re in a mood, instead of allowing it to continue, we can enquire of our state of mind and heart beneath; just to see if the mood reveals a deeper lack, for they often do.

There are times when genuine sadness strikes at a very conscious level; again, we must honour such sadness, allowing ourselves time out—to be gentle with ourselves.

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Negative emotions like anger, much everyday anxiety, and even pretentious happiness are often a cover for sadness at a deeper level. Everyone has sadness and it’s okay. Enquiring of our negative emotions to check for sadness, and to be there for ourselves, validates such sadness. We don’t feel so lonely or helpless.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Experiencing True Happiness

Rational, thinking human beings wish to be happy. It’s no sin to want happiness. It’s just our process getting us there is often flawed. Our human default is to want direct possession of a thing we cannot directly possess. Happiness only comes from indirect means. Happiness, certainly as it manifests in relational life, only comes as we’re prepared to give it away.

Happiness personified is the embodiment of our being that’s filled with joy.

We might imagine never feeling better. That’s a terrific vision, but how might we get there?

Focusing On The Right Centre-Point

Enjoying the product that is espoused happiness benefits from investment in a process. Happiness is not a product in itself, unless we think of happiness as licking an ice cream. But if we’re after a more sustaining happiness we need to think deeper.

The right centre-point for happiness is a paradox—an opposite.

It involves taking our natural focus off ourselves and placing it, voluntarily, on others; getting interested, compassionate, patient, and tolerant with others and it’s getting involved, for their benefit, in their suffering. It’s about taking our sullen and forlorn outlooks and shelving them enough for some authentic enquiry into others’ lives—in a loving, non-intrusive way.

The right centre-point for happiness is a focus away from ourselves and toward others, with a critical disclaimer: we must first be centred enough within ourselves to hold the others’ concerns safely enough without compromising our own safety.

An Important Clarification – Get Centred

Running after others, as if to serve them to the ends of their desires, is taking these ideas too far. There must be an essential centredness within us as we seek to serve. Only when we’re safe within ourselves can we enjoy service to others. Otherwise it’s drudgery, as all work can be seen as either joy or graft.

It’s important to clarify this. Many people read about ideas for happiness and become further frustrated, because they’ve tried these things and happiness has eluded them.

So, before we can serve others, enjoying thoughts of life within their skin, hearts and minds, we need to be comfortable within our skin, hearts and minds.

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Achieving happiness is feeling safe enough within to afford investment in others’ lives. When others feel loved by us, we too feel loved. This is not about self-neglect, but an extension of self-interest via an interest in others.

Being genuinely interested in others’ struggles—being free and able to do it—is a way to experiencing true happiness.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.