Cyber Sermon April 2003 2003-04-08

Life, The Universe, and Everything

�I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.� �William Henry Channing

�The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.� �Quentin Crisp

I think it�s safe to say, that at some point, everyone has asked of themselves �Why am I here?� If you haven�t asked yourself this question, then good for you. You and your ego have nothing to worry about. But the rest of us, we get depressed, we get frustrated, we feel useless, worthless, and like we can never make a difference in other people�s lives. That if we weren�t around, no one would notice. It all leads us to ask the inevitable question, �What�s the point?�

Interesting question. We work hard for the money (so hard for the money). Life goes from working your ass off in school to working your ass of for the Man. We�re slaves. Slaves to society, slaves to public opinion, slaves to our bills, to religion, to the television, we�re slaves to ourselves!
We spend our entire lives trying to please somebody. Somebody else. What�s the point?
Do we ever get the slightest hint of gratitude? Of feeling like we accomplished something? What�s the point?
Mel Gibson, in the movie "Braveheart" pointed out, as subtle as a 2x4, �Every man dies, not every man really lives.� What�s living? What does living mean? What�s the point of living if you�re just going to die? Why am I here? What�s the point?

This is when religious fundamentalists let you know about their �Life after Death Program.� In just ten easy steps they can ensure that living your life has no point, you just need to be sure about where you�re going in the next one.
Of course, they aren�t the only ones with Life After Death Programs. Let�s not forget the historians, the psychiatrists, and sociologists. Their secret is to have you live a life worth remembering. A life that lives on in the pages of history.
All of these solutions do little provide meaning to life, but do much to provide meaning to death. So is that why we�re here? To die in the best way possible? Why? What�s the point? Sooner ask what the point of a tree is.

What is the point of a tree? Well, an off the cuff answer might be: the tip of its branches. Look at a tree. What possible reason can it have for existing?
As sad as it is, nothing seems to exists for it�s own sake. Everything exists to provide for everything else. Trees provide wood to burn and build. Filter carbon dioxide into oxygen. Provide shade. What does it do that doesn�t help anyone else? What does it do to provide meaning to itself? Does anything do that? Is it even possible?

We�ve come to a hard moment. Perhaps we should go back and re-evaluate our basic premise.
We are alive (Seems like a fairly rational starting point). I have been attempting, through the course of this dialogue, to determine what the point of being alive is. We�ve established that. And perhaps this is where my problem comes in. Whether or not there�s a point to being alive, here we are. We�re alive, regardless of what that means. The difficulty in answering this question lies in the fact that I�ve been describing life as a state of being, and not as a state of action. Seen in this light, things start to make a little more sense.

People live under the assumption that they have certain rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This seems to me to be a grave misunderstanding. These aren�t rights. They are privileges. Throughout history this misunderstanding has flourished. The privilege of owning land became the right of nobility. The privilege of voting became the right of women. The privilege of being equal in the eyes of God and Man became the right of people all over the world. The right to live lasts only as long as we remain on the top of the food chain.
We forget our history. We have become arrogant and demanding as a civilization. We�ve decided that we are entitled to natural resources, to technology, to money, to be taken care of. We think we are entitled to medi-care, which would have been unnecessary if the medical profession didn�t think they were entitled to make millions of dollars in the business of saving people�s lives. We think we�re entitled to social security. To a stable family life. To feeding our stomachs with bread and our brains with knowledge. To life.
We�re entitled to life? We�ve become parasites, sucking up life from the world and those who inhabit it, all because of what we feel we�re entitled to.

The meaning of life is irrelevant. It�s the meaning of living that we need to focus on.
All life was given the means for its survival. Animals have claws, teeth, camouflage, etc, in order to survive its environment. Man was given the extraordinary capacity to think. To learn. We were given the Mind.
A lot of problems today have arisen because we haven�t been properly using what was given us for our survival. We take and take and take, and we need to start balancing that with giving and giving and giving.

What does living mean? Living is contribution, of being a productive member of society, of being in a state of action instead of a state of being. Of taking the positive advantages of our privileges and using them to excel those privileges, and extend them to the rest of our community. Living is the drive towards self-sufficiency, not the clinging entitlements of a parasite.

�How good is man�s life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!� �Robert Browning

�We don�t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.� �Marcel Proust

�To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.� �William Henry Channing

Peace.

The IrReverend