Tag Archives: Meaning

Meaning and Meaninglessness in Spirituality

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Richard Rohr writes powerfully and eloquently about the need to live in the domain of “duality” and recognize the specific relevance of the notion in the realm of spirituality. We do “see through a glass darkly” as the Apostle Paul once noted because this world we live in, which we daily imbibe (usually without any conscious awareness) is made up of infinite complexity, teeming with paradox stemming from this “duality.” One simple example is merely a favorite notion of mine, “We are not what we know ourselves to be. We are much more than that.” But being mere mortals, clothed in flesh, we have had to carve for ourselves an identity fashioned from the ephemeral so that we can function in this beautiful world, a world which…ephemeral thought it might be…is God’s creation.

As we pursue this path which Rohr and others suggest, we must “wrestle with words and meanings” (T. S. Eliot) and thus we dive headfirst into this maelstrom of ambiguity, confusion, doubt, and fear. This is because, here in this land banished from conscious awareness by our “common-sense” day-to-day world, we discover “meaning” and learn that “meaning” inevitably taunts us with “meaninglessness.”

Let me explain why with a simple philosophical maneuver. Imagine a world in which everything was colored blue. In that world, “blue” would therefore not exist for “blue” has no meaning without its complement, “not-blue.” Asking someone to pay attention to “blue” would be like asking a fish to see water.

And the whole of language lies in a similar matrix. However, I must insist that I don’t spent a lot of time wondering about the meaning of most words that I use! If I did, I would soon be swallowed up by an abyss and cease to be functional! I thank the good Lord for this neurological gift as some are not so fortunate. But some words I do deign to explore…to name just a few…god, love, truth, and “right”… and most importantly, in my case, deign to explore the word “Lewis”, the origin of Literary “Lew”. With each of these terms, which I have deemed significant, their complement (including opposite) has to be considered in order for the words to have meaning.

Let me close with an excerpt from W. H. Auden about this treacherous journey. The “Star of Nativity” is speaking his Auden’s Christmas Oratorio:

All those who follow me are led
Onto that glassy mountain where are no
Footholds for logic, to that Bridge of Dread,
Where knowledge but increases vertigo;
Those who pursue me take a twisting lone
To find themselves immediately alone
With savage water or unfeeling stone,
In labyrinths where they must entertain
Confusion, cripples, tigers, thunder, pain.

Man’s Quest for Meaning

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Oliver Sacks writes in the current New Yorker re his battle with drug addiction during the 50’s and 60’s. He introduced the subject with a very thoughtful note re mankind’s quest for meaning:

To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology, or in states of mind that allow us to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings.

This adventure we are caught up in, from which we cannot escape, is just an incredible, mind-boggling enterprise. It has been delightful to spend my life pondering over the inimitable mysteries of life, poring over history and discovering that even thousands of years ago men and women looked up at the stars and felt the same overwhelming awe that I often experience.

We are such fragile little creatures who somehow have climbed to the top of the food chain, a success which now presents us with profound existential questions all of which can probably be summarized as this quest for meaning. And this quest for meaning inevitably tempts us with its antithesis…meaninglessness…and the struggle between the two often leads to some really poor decisions, individually and collectively.

We lost our religion in the 20th century and our culture is showing the wear-and-tear that happens when this happens to a tribe. Now, it is true we needed to “lose” our religion in that it had become moribund, primarily consisting of, “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken) But now the task is to find spiritual roots again and these roots can be found often in the very religious traditions that we have discarded.