what's the meaning...?

my dear friend said, "i discovered the meaning of life a couple of weeks back"

for whatever reasons that there, and now, i choose not to explore, i did not want to hear the revelation in truth or in jest...

but it pulled me up all the same...compelled me to write define pin down catergorise seek tell remember my own...maybe i did not want to know because we can never tell the meaning of life to another, it can only be known to the self..

this is what i wrote...and as i wrote i saw in my mind paul's blog post of earlier today, In the arms of the angels ... with its starkly powerful image, which at the time provoked in me pretty much this same emotional surge that i ended up writing about tonight... i'm leaving this pretty much unedited, so forgive any sloppiness, this is the gut of the heart speaking, not the rational(ising) mind...

::

What is the meaning of life?

Is there any meaning? he said he found it a few weeks back. i was afraid of the answer...i’m not sure i even believed him, but i don't know why... yet it sparked in me... my belief...how precious this mystery of meaning is... am i afraid of revelation that might rob me of meaning?

I’m not sure we ever find it definitively. we are given but mere glimpses. through a glass darkly we squint and peer...

it must be something to do with:
Beauty
Love
Compassion
Kindness
Care
To respond to the pain of others
To value ourselves and each other in our humanity as equal

Maybe in the face of apparent meaninglessness, the meaning of life is the very act of finding meaning – of not being defeated by despair. Of seeing beauty. Not the outer beauty, but the inner...

or maybe the meaning is to believe there is a meaning. Reason to go on...

or, is it to love rather than hate?

the meaning is in recognising that this life is precious and to see it as something to be cherished. that others are to be cherished... love your neighbour. love your enemy.

the meaning is...
to see a photograph of a figure suspended in falling, and find meaning
to see the life that is being lost
to see the soul and heart and the tragedy of the loss of this person before their time
not because they are American, not because they represent democracy
because they were a human being, born of a mother, who had the capacity for love and was loved. Cherished.
for them not to be a stranger. but a person. valuable. priceless.


The meaning of life is to love. To recognise our capacity to love.
The meaning is to cherish this life.

Life is beautiful. is meaninglessness born of action that contradicts life's beauty...?

the meaning is:
Not to seek power.
Not to want more than you need.
to never put ideaology or self interest before the other...

The meaning of life is to feel in order to act...with compassion in every waking moment. or at least try to. we can do that.
to live with compassion is to never willingly harm yourself or another soul...no it is to embrace the beauty of the human... to always believe in the possibility of love, peace, care, kindness, truth and beauty being present in every moment if we choose to see it... and where it does not exist... to do something about it... to change our lives, our world so that everyone has that chance... from the starving child in Niger to the falling in Mahattan...to see them as priceless as daniel, or chris, or ewan, or jude, or padraig, or ricky, or paul, or mo, or willow or any other person that i love...


the meaning has to be we live to live out this kind of Love...the kind of love that costs us something...the kind of love that has true weight...value...honest meaning...the kind of love that lives in the place deep within where there are no more words... the same place that holds the well of tears within us... when we love we feel when we feel we hurt

::

and this too was running through my mind...from American Beauty, spoken by ricky fitts (no stranger to coldness, brutality, and sadness), as his eys brim with tears. it is not the video i remember when i recall this scene but his face... his humanity... his capacity for feeling...

It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

and i find a year on since the good friday i designed my tattoo, that despite so much disconnection from what i thought was belief, that the eternal mystery remains... what is the difference between the divine and love?

alpha : YHWH : AMOR : omega

the best i can ever seem to do is just feel the meaning... the mystery... the meaning that gives (my) life and the people in it "the patina of the cherished"... is that enough... does it make me a believer?

LB,x

post-script: i am not quite clear why, but as i've been browsing back through ::the harbour of ourselves:: these past few minutes (paul - your words have moved me much of late my friend, so many images and thoughts i have not been able to shake off), this quote, from a few posts back, struck a chord in me. i have no clear sense of what dots it joins with the post above, although i think it may resonate with the last ungrammatic but heartfelt last line i wrote in the splurge, that is probably about as honest as my woundedness gets, when we love we feel when we feel we hurt but anyways, fwiw,

How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded.'
M. Scott Peck, A Different Drum