A Soulful Journey

Philosophers ponder the meaning of life.   Scientists attempt to wrest understanding from their endless theories and experiments.   Religious folk poke their noses toward heaven and wonder.   Atheists endlessly argue the same thing over and again.   Agnostics shrug. One generation unknowingly reconstructs the same arguments as the previous generation.   “Is knowledge knowable?   If not, how do we know this?”   -Woody Allen, Getting Even Might as well laugh.

Respect people and their boundaries. There are times when we may feel that people have juvenile opinions about their faith. Or childish thoughts about God, superstition, love or whatever. Yet sometimes these thoughts are the essence that holds them together. This may be the "glue” that keeps them from falling apart. It is not our job to disparage or tear down their beliefs. G.K Chesterton wrote: “You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature…Don’t go about…encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their three sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comes to a lamentable end.”

"Now I'm ready to start on the second chapter.  I am being frank about myself in this book.  I tell of my first mistake on page 850."                -  Henry Kissinger   It is good to do good. It is good to think good thoughts. It is good to have self-confidence. It is not so good to think so well of yourself that errors are non-existent or infrequent.

Everybody matters.   Everybody counts.   No voice is silent before God.   Should it be any differently with humanity? Sam was a pauper in a well-to-do community.   One evening the President called a meeting to discuss a community problem.   People cited pros and cons and when Sam wanted to express an opinion, he was ignored.   At the end of the evening someone remembered they had a yahrzeit and needed to say Kaddish .   A head count was taken.   There were ten people, including Sam.   Then Sam turned to the President and said bitterly: “You see, to you I am a nobody but to God, I count.”   -Rabbi Hillel Silverman A working community is where every voice is heeded.

“For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds?   And what are pounds?   Simply an aggregate composite of cells.   Can a cell be moral?   Is a cell beyond good or evil?   Who knows – they’re so small.”   - Woody Allen in Getting Even We spend so much of our lives fretting over what existence means, how to invent a better widget, how to achieve joy.   Sometimes the most profound realizations are the most obvious ones: Life itself is meant to be full of wonder... and fun.

Someone once described the Creation like this: “In the beginning, God created Adam.   He looked at the first man and said, “Not good enough…I can do better.”   And then He created Eve. Funny, but therein lies a powerful truth.   Man alone is not good enough.   That is why Adam was so unhappy in the Eden.   He was lonely.   Only when God created Eve could Adam find contentment. So it is with us.   We, too, find true fulfillment only in companionship.

"A composer determines  every note for instruments and voices; a novelist chooses the exact placement of words and the beginnings and endings of sentence and paragraphs; the painter selects colors; the dancer enlivens gesture; the stage actor modifies pauses and rhythms of expression.  But the filmmaker must depend on an almost infinite number of variables and an unpredictable array of talents to collaborate with him in the fulfillment of his dream idea..." - Alfred Hitchcock. In our lives we capture a vision of what it means to be fully alive and communicate that vision, like a filmmaker, to every person.  The dream is evident in the way we treat people, the manner we greet them, the words we use, the clothes we wear...  In other words, our lives are the acting out of the vision of how we see life. Make the dream-actions worthy of you and God.

Eleanor Roosevelt lived her principles.  She stated that she wanted to illumine the dark corners of the world rather than whine at her lack of strength to do anything about it.  In the aftermath of her life, Roosevelt was touted and remembered as a person who gave the world hope.  "For she would rather light candles than curse the darkness."  - Adlai Stevenson on recalling Eleanor Roosevelt We will be remembered not for what we say but what we do.

The tracks that we make in the snow or mud soon disappear leaving no trace of their origin.  Humans are not like that, though.  Our lives are fraught with meaning. In giving a eulogy for a close friend, George Santayana remarked, "I do not know know which is greater - that which you take from me or that which you leave behind." So it is for us.