Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Answer to the Meaning of All Life and Existence
I made a joke about the meaning of all life and existence recently. A friend told me that, in a half-asleep haze, she had deleted a comment I had left on her Facebook wall. Though the actual comment I had left had only been a casual greeting, I responded by saying, "That's too bad. I gave you the answer to the meaning of all life and existence... now you'll never know!" Eventually I wrote back that according to Douglas Adams, the answer is 42.
But what is the true meaning of all life and existence? This is all anyone wants to know, isn't it? And though I spend far too much of my time searching for the meaning of my life and existence, is it possible I already know the answer to both questions?
Isn't it love?
I mean, not to be too vague or hippie... but isn't that what it all comes down to? Get past all the greeting card clichés and worldly cynicism and religious hypocrisy and self-help books and bad romantic comedies, and love still stands. Love remains. Love: that simplest and yet most complex of things. That greatest of things (1 Corinthians 13:13). That divine impetus upon which every other word from the mouths of the Prophets or the pages of the Torah or the pens of the Apostles hinges (Matthew 22:34-40).
And not just love, the greatest of things, but that love that is the greatest of loves--the kind of love Jesus was talking about when he said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13, KJV). And that might merely have gone down in history as a nice maxim if he had not then followed through on it, completely, in action, to the death. THAT gave his words a far greater power--the power to transform all of life and existence, to bring all of life and existence back into harmony with God, and to free all of life and existence from the very death of which he spoke.
There is no more final an answer to the meaning of it all than that.
It is love.
-Tom
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1 comment:
You sure do have a way with words! This was a very enjoyable read. This is your calling Tom. Writing. I also agree with you. I believe that love is the answer. I have loved and lost and loved again. Each time more invigorating than the last. Each time it was me... living. All of my lost loves were like stars leading me to an unknown place I was meant to be. Murnee has been the best thing that's ever happened to me, but I ate a lot of bad eggs to find her. I also flew a lot of air miles! lol I found my love as far from home as I've ever been. The funny thing is... when I left for Malaysia the only thing on my mind was getting away from being in relationships and searching for love. I was tired of dating people. I was tired of looking, so I gave up and started to travel. The last thing on my mind was finding and falling for somebody. And THAT is when it snuck up on me. When I gave up looking. When I started living for my dreams. To sum it all up... do what you love and love will find you.
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