The Sauntering Pilgrim

It may be one of the most recognizable lines in American literature. At least it is for me. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” It’s from Thoreau’s Walden, where he described where he lived and what he lived for as he searched for meaning in life.

Two weeks ago Pastor Jeff raised the question of meaning, “What are we doing that lasts longer than our breath on a cold day?” And last week I recalled Merton’s question, “If you want to identify me, . . . ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” How do we find meaning in life so we don’t discover, when we reach the end of our days, that we have not lived?

One of the most important books of the last century was Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. As a longtime prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl was stripped of everything but his bare existence. His father, mother, brother, and wife died in the camps; only he and his sister survived. How could he – every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold, and brutality, expecting extermination at any hour – how could he find a life of meaning?

You may not have read Frankl’s book, nor followed Thoreau into the woods, nor sat much with Merton’s question of identity. But I believe Frankl and Thoreau and Merton and Pastor Jeff have expressed a question that’s at the heart of why we are here today. We’re looking to find or create a life of meaning. We’re looking to fill what Pascal called the “God-shaped vacuum” in the heart of each one of us that only God can fill.

The problem is that, too often, we tend to look for meaning in life everywhere except where it’s found, until we realize that meaning in life is not something to be sought and found, it’s something we’re already living that needs only to be seen. Like the great mythic voyagers – Ulysses, Melville’s Ishmael, even Dorothy Gale – we search for the holy grail of meaning at land’s end, only to discover, as Dorothy did, that we needn’t look for it anywhere other than our own backyard.

Before you try to figure out the meaning of your life, listen for what life is telling you about its meaning. And perhaps the best place to start is not in our religious traditions, nor in the great saints of the church, nor in our scriptures, though all of these are good places to look. But look to the natural world, to the creation that surrounds us, in which God has given us our places so that we may “search for God and perhaps grope for [God] and find [God]” (Acts 17:27), the God who will fill the vacuum in the heart of each of us.

Follow Job’s advice and, “ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you” (Job 12:7f). “Ever since the creation of the world,” St. Paul wrote, “[God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things [God] has made” (Rom. 1:20).

“Visible creatures,” Thomas Aquinas wrote, “are like a book in which we read the knowledge of God.” According to Max Lucado, “Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are no preachers there are spring times. If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God.” And Thomas Merton believed, “Nothing has ever been said about God that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.”

It’s been said that nature is God’s first scripture, and certainly from the beginning it has been a primary source of God’s revelation and strength, a sure refuge where we can ground ourselves when life is hard and times tough. So during these tough, uncertain times, we might do nothing better than accept Mary Oliver’s invitation.

Oh do you have time
     to linger
             for just a little while
                    out of your busy

and very important day
     for the goldfinches
             that have gathered
                    in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
     to see who can sing
              the highest note,
                    or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
     or the most tender?
             Their strong, blunt beaks
                    drink the air

as they strive
     melodiously
             not for your sake
                    and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
     but for sheer delight and gratitude—
             believe us, they say,
                    it is a serious thing

just to be alive
     on this fresh morning
             in the broken world.
                    I beg of you,

do not walk by
     without pausing
             to attend to this
                    rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
     It could mean everything.
           It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
                You must change your life.