meaning of life

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People are the Meaning of Life: The Rich, The Poor, and The Loved

There are three types of people in the world. The rich, the poor, and the loved.

I recently watched the deleted scenes from the holiday movie Love Actually. The camera zooms in on a poster of two African women in the hot desert. They are carrying baskets full of corn on top of their heads – a scene that would cause many viewers to assume they live a difficult live. As their camera gets closer to the shot of the women, the picture comes to life.

Through subtitles at the bottom of the screen, the viewer learns that these women are indeed quite happy. They are simply carrying food from their garden as they do each day, talking about their husbands and their children. The scene closes with one of the women with her husband, looking out across their small plot of land. They lived a simply life, but were quite content. They had each other and had enough to eat. Though it wasn’t a feast.

A few weeks ago I viewed a slide show called “What the World Eats”. Each slide featured a family from a different country pictured in their kitchen with all the food they eat in a week’s time. One of the poorest families featured was from Ecuador. Their kitchen was simply a corner of their hut. They only ate vegetables, I’m sure not by choice. But they sincerely looked happy in the picture. They had each other and enough to eat. Though it wasn’t a feast.

Here is a link to that slideshow I saw :

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373664,00.html

While much of the world experiences constants civil wars and famine and corrupt governments, not all “poor countries” are suffering. They just live on a lot less than us. And are happy. Not all cultures require a family to own a large house and a minimum of two cars.

Subconsciously, I have been pitying every foreign country poor enough not to have their own national brand of vehicles or their own equivalent to American Idol. But perhaps, they have been pitying me, the Capitalist. Living in a land where it’s easy to end up focusing on chasing money for an entire lifetime.

My church has a ministry where they take in refugees from northern Africa, Iraq, and Southeast Asia. The church helps them to find jobs and an apartment to help them “get on their feet”. Some of them have expressed that life in America is not as easy as it has been romanticized.

While it is the land of the free, it is also the land of the working. Many are surprised by how many hours Americans must work a week to support their families and keep up the maintenance of even one car, which is all but necessary in our culture.

Obviously they are glad to be here instead of imprisoned in a refugee camp in a country plagued with violence, racism, and religious discrimination. But to be an American typically means a person must work the majority of the hours of the week.

From what I’ve been hearing from people outside this country, something Americans are known for is being obsessed with their work. But I don’t know. I’m not an outsider.

I do know I only have about 3 quality hours (at very best) each weekday with my wife. Because she’s in her Master’s classes all day Saturday, the only day we really have together is Sunday. And by then, we’re exhausted from the work week. I’m realizing I envy families who actually get to spend time with each other.

My wife has said several times that she would have like to live in the pioneer days of covered wagons and schoolhouses in the West. Not me. Too hot. Too cold. Too easy to get sick. To easy to die. No thanks.

However, this is the only life I know. If I never knew the comfort of an air conditioner in a house or road trip in an SUV with a CD player, then I wouldn’t know what I am missing.

I thank God for my life in America in 2009. Such a blessed country.

But in my time of seeing happy, simple families in poorer countries I have traveled like Trinidad, Ecuador, and the northern mountainous villages of Thailand, I became aware that I wanted what they had.

A big house and trendy clothes and new cars mean working more to keep up with the high overhead. I try to imagine a life where the picture is so beautiful, even if the frame isn’t fancy. That’s the life I’m aiming for.

 

 

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People are the Meaning of Life, Part 4

 

The funny thing about enemies is that sometimes they end up becoming our friends later on. Once we trudge past the hurt, forgiveness, awkwardness, new beginning, and a block of time that helps wash away the instant stigma that used to come to mind when we would think of them, we can find ourselves in a situation where we almost think to ourselves, “What did we use to fight about, anyway?”

We as a nation have hated England, Germany, Italy, and Japan in past wars. But now it’s hard to imagine considering any of those countries as enemies, because in my lifetime, they have only been friends of America. Ironically, our country now depends on our relationships with them- not just in military alliances but also in trade.

I feel like I’m the only person in history who actually saw Mel Gibson’s 2006 movie Apocalypto, in which the concept is “there will always be an enemy, whether it’s within one’s self, in his village, in his nation, or outside his nation”. That idea is something I have kept in mind when I find myself brewing against a person who doesn’t see things the way I do, whether the other person is clearly wrong or not. Knowing that on any other day, it just as easily could be me that’s a hazard to myself, because I woke up that morning subconsciously deciding that day would suck because I thought it was Saturday but it was Thursday instead.

Ultimately, the lesson I have learned from dealing with “enemies” is this: It’s always a humbling experience. Being humbled is painful and uncomfortable, like be pushed into a swimming pool in the winter with my clothes on. And to be humbled is to be humiliated, to some degree. Because sometimes the only way to move past the antagonistic part of a relationship with a person is to stop trying to show them that they really are wrong and instead adopt this new branding of “we’ve both been wrong/we’ve let things get out of control/this has just been a big misunderstanding”. That goes against everything inside of me, but has proven the most effective way for me to have one less enemy and gain one more ally.

The Enemies we encounter in life, for the most part, are here to enhance our lives. As we learn to deal with them, we learn to better communicate and react to Bigger Enemies, along with treating our family and close friends better as well. People are the meaning of life, and annoyingly, even our Enemies help that to be true.

 

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People are the Meaning of Life, Part 3

 

I’ve always tried to imagine what it would be like to spend all day at an amusement park and not have to wait in line. Not because I got to pass everyone to the front, but because there were no other people there other than the people I came with.

And with all the annoying traffic I have to deal with everyday as I drive through Nashville, I’ve thought about what it would be like to be the only one on the road.

And when I go to Starbucks to read everyday on my lunch break to read, would I be able to truly escape if there were not the roaring mumbles of everyone else there?

Our lives are filled with people who mean a whole lot to us; those are the ones that make up the main cast of characters.

But there are also the extras, the people with no names or stories. Just the muddled cardboard images of characters that serve as background noise and decoration. They keep our lives from being a ghost town.

Of course it works both ways: I’m just another wallflower to them as well. I serve no obvious importance or benefit. But if they are People Watchers like I am, maybe as they wait in line near me to get coffee they try to figure out my story.

 

What could these strangers tell about me as they take a look at my 10 year-old battered Birkenstocks? When they hear me order my coffee, does my voice match me the way they had envisioned it? Do they think I’m weird for ordering a solo shot of espresso over ice instead of a blissful $4 milkshake of a coffee?

But a few minutes later, we’re no longer standing in line together. They leave and drive away. Most likely, I won’t cross their mind again. I simply gave them something to subconsciously think about as they waited in line. They were entertained by me without me ever even looking them in the eyes or speaking a word to them. I am an extra, just as they were to me.

Even the extras add to the meaning of life.

 

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People are the Meaning of Life, Part 2

 

It’s a fact. There has never been another year in history (2009) when this many well-known people have died, namely middle aged celebrities, Michael Jackson being the foremost.  I keep thinking of the lyrics to that Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “oh, oh that smell- the smell of death surrounds you”. For a culture that seems to have some roots still grounded in the mindset of a 19 year-old kid (convinced they’re invincible and not really seeming to grasp that they actually will get old one day if and only if they live that long), we are now being forced to consciously think about it: There is a 100% chance of death for all of us. Life is a trap- no one gets out alive.

Not only does that require us to evaluate our lives, but it forces us to make at least one conscious attempt to nail down our view of the After Life. Because despite what we allow ourselves to safely believe, there can only be one absolute truth about life after death. Not everyone can be right. That’s the security, necessary exclusiveness, and hope that a faith brings.

Just like the way the male baldness gene randomly shows up in some men by age 20, while for others it leaves them alone for quite a while, the same “hot potato” concept goes for death. If everything goes as expected, we will live into our 70’s. But there are many variables that just can’t be controlled. There’s a redneck cup koozie I’ve seen before at gas stations that says in neon rainbow colors on a forest green background: “Eat right, exercise, don’t smoke… Die anyway!”

Being that I work in the transportation industry, someone a few weeks ago was trying to make a point to me about a particular safety issue regarding an 18 wheeler truck and in an effort that I feel crossed the line because it brought my personal life into a work environment, I was asked this question in front of others as a fear tactic: “How would you feel if a big rig ran into you and killed you?”

I pretended to listen and pay attention to what the person continued to say after that, knowing it didn’t matter anyway because I knew I was right and I later proved it through course of action instead of words. But ultimately on the inside I was doing my best to keep from saying out loud, “How would I feel if I died? I probably wouldn’t feel anything. I would be dead, you moron.”

Admittedly, that lame attempt to prove a wrong point to me actually has caused me to truly give thought to “dying before my time”. I am solid in my beliefs about my eternal destination. But the ultimate sadness of death is knowing that the 50 remaining years I have planned out in my head, with my wife and my family and my friends, are at this point just that- plans.

Either I get those years with the people I love or I don’t. And I have no control over that. Therefore, it makes me over-aware that each passing year I live is nothing but God’s grace. He allows me to continue to share life with these people. That is the reason I am still alive.

I used to have this way of thinking that if I didn’t talk out loud about my fears, they wouldn’t come true. But now I’m talking. Knowing that it’s not up to fate or something I can jinx; it’s up to God choosing to keep me around.

The downside of being happy about my life is knowing that it’s not guaranteed another second. Like the previously mentioned “hot potato” concept, in a sense we are forced to play Russian Roulette every day we wake up. So far so good. We’re all still alive. But the thought of missing out on life, which is the people in it, which are the meaning of life- deeply saddens me.

So this helps to explain why I am constantly called “Grandpa” when I drive, often going under the speed limit and never taking my eyes off the road. And it better explains why I am so focused on healthy eating and exercise. It’s why I won’t jump off into water I can’t see the bottom of. It’s why I never say good-bye to my wife without letting her know I love her.

People are the meaning of life. And in a related yet also almost opposite perspective, the real reason death is so scary is the fact is that it removes us from the people we love and the lifetime we’ve shared with them. Death takes us away from the meaning of life. We’re not afraid of dying, we afraid of losing life. That moment when everything we’ve ever known becomes like an old series of blurry dreams, and we wake up to the ultimate First Day in a New Place.

“I am invincible as long as I’m alive.” -John Mayer (“No Such Thing”)

“And if I go before I’m old, oh brother of mine please don’t forget me if I go… When I was young I didn’t think about it, now I just can’t get it off my mind.”
-Dave Matthews Band (“Bartender”)

 

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People are the Meaning of Life: Money Vs. Love

 

Earlier in the summer I wrote an article where I mocked “treasure movies” because the people searching for the treasure don’t usually get to keep the money or gold. The bad guy gets the treasure instead and dies/turns to a statue/becomes cursed, etc. The good guy gets the “real treasure”, which is a lofty moral proverb about life itself being the actual treasure. With this in mind, the past three days spent in my hometown Labor Day weekend helped make it clear that while life is the real treasure, it’s the people in our lives that give life meaning. Simple concept, but I’ve never really let it sink in before: People are the meaning of life.

Last Friday I took off work to visit Fort Payne, AL in action. I wanted my wife to see the award winning elementary school, the place I used to work, my parents’ places of work, their church, and the local Greek restaurant. Each time we arrived at a new place, I was surrounded by people I’ve known at least for the past 20 years. Childhood friends, their parents, and people I know through association in the 13,000 population town. It reminded me of the end of the movie Big Fish and also Mr. Holland’s Opus. Everyone was there and everyone was happy to be there.

Money becomes irrelevant when it comes to family and close friends. My parents have made it clear to me without actually having to say it, that raising a child is a priceless job: No amount of money could equal all they have sacrificed or gained. There are certain experiences and areas of personal growth that can only be obtained through human relationships.

I remember in high school being asked this question in class: “Which would you rather have- a billion dollars but no human contact whatsoever, or countless good friends but very little money?” Not even the class clown chose the money, not even for a easy laugh.

My stock answer for the question of the meaning of life has always been “to please God”. But even Jesus himself made it very clear that it’s impossible to love and serve God without loving and serving people. Jesus said one of the greatest commandments of all is to “love your neighbor as yourself” and even taught his followers to also love their enemies. People are the meaning of life.

I can’t help but see a direct co-relation between the world’s health care crisis and the lack of Christian involvement. Not our “Christianized American government”. It’s not their job. It was left up to the Christians, starting in the New Testament. But the government is left to pick up the slack, and tends to disappoint. The Apostle James said that true religion is caring for widows and orphans. People are the meaning of life.

“The truth is, we say not as we do… Pick up the beat and stop hogging the feast- that’s no way to treat an enemy.” -Jack Johnson (“Sleep through the Static”)