Have you ever thought about the meaning of life?
I’ll bet you have but maybe you might have phrased it differently. You might have thought something like “What is it all for?” “What makes life worth living?” or “Are we just here to pay bills and die?”.
I know I’ve asked myself all of these questions. These questions are all echoes of something people call the psyche. Psyche is a Greek word that translates to soul. So it is actually your soul asking these questions.
We have problems when our soul doesn’t get to ask these questions, or indeed, doesn’t get an answer. These problems might show up as anxiety, depression or any other type of soul sickness.
I certainly don’t claim to have the answer to “what is the meaning of life?”. I also don’t think life is so much about happiness as it is about finding meaning. But I do wonder, as I reflect this week on Holy Week in the church, that one of the answers we might consider is that the meaning of life is to learn to love and to let go.
Think about it. Isn’t that what happens in life?
We love our children, then let them go into the world as adults. We love our parents and let go of our dependence on them. We love our pets and at the same time realise they will have a shorter life than we will. We love our spouse, knowing that one day we will be physically parted by death. We love our friends, knowing that sometimes our school friends and us will drift apart as we get older. We love our jobs and mourn the loss of them.
This is the ultimate act of surrendering control. When we surrender control, we have less stress. It is hard to do though, because parts of us crave certainty and predictability. It makes us feel safe. Rumination, the act of worrying about a situation over and over again, is the psyche’s way of trying to find predictability in a chaotic world. It is unpleasant and distressing.
Holy Week shows us both the cost of loving and letting go, but also the most extraordinary, wonderful and other worldly experience on the other side of this practice. Jesus loves us to let go of his own life, only to take it back up again in triumph on Easter Day. The examined life is a lifelong pursuit and isn’t something only people who have free time can do. You can work, have a busy life, marriage, kids and still wonder about yourself. Who you really are, what your psyche is summoning you to, and indeed, what God is whispering to you.
This Easter, if you haven’t already, take a moment to ask yourself: What is the meaning of your life? And what might it mean to love – and to let go?
Rev’d. Kimbalee Hodges
– Rector of the Anglican Parish of Dungog
