The Arist, The Canvas (or: meaning against the backdrop of purpose)

I had lunch with a fellow classmate today who is an astounding and inspiring woman. She has lived a varied and exciting life full of great accomplishments in the way of helping, encouraging, and ministering to other people.

One thing she said today that really stood out to me was, "No one is an accident." We had been talking about purpose and meaning and how some people feel lost in their lives or can't seem to find a reason to keep going... they feel disconnected, isolated, or without worth.

In those times, she said, it's important to remember that one's life is not an accident. Everyone's life has purpose and everyone is connected to God (which she and I probably think of a bit differently).

I tend to believe we are all connected to something larger than ourselves... something through which we are interwoven and interconnected, along the lines of quantum physics or string theory. Add in the spiritual and the scientific becomes metaphysical... the space between atoms becomes a deeper and more meaningful place within which something magical or sacred can reside.

It's difficult, sometimes, to find or define one's purpose in life. And I do think the ways in which we find meaning or that which we prioritize and deem important and fulfilling in life (think of Curly's "one thing" in City Slickers) can change over time.

But I love the articulation of the concept that every life has purpose and meaning simply through its mere existence. Sort of a Buddhist idea in the sense that being is the point. Is is the point. And thus no life is without worth or purpose. It is as it should be.

I sometimes think that if you could stand outside of time and see all the lives that are, have been, and will be, it would be like looking at one of those pictures made up of tinier pictures... each distinct image holding its own but also being caught in a pattern much larger - and ultimately more complex and grander - than its own.

I think that would be a rather lovely thing to view. An intentional yet chaotic portrait of this tremendous roller coaster we call life.