Our life means something. We just don’t always know WHAT.
I have been thinking about the Lord of the Rings story again…(okay, okay, I admit to a slight bit of preoccupation. For some reason the story just makes me have to think a few things through.)
The reason the events in the story seem so supercharged is that everything that is happening has meaning. All their actions are focused on destroying the power of evil. It is a long and complicated process too. So what you end up with is a handful of characters walking through the forest being infused with MEANING. That’s hard for us mortals embedded in the reality of our life to get a grip on. I feel jealous of them. They knew what had to be done. It was hard, shoot there are times when it seemed nigh on impossible, but at least they knew what they had to do, and why.
Our reality HIDES the real meaning of our actions. The enormous effects that we have in the other worlds is hidden from us. We can’t see it, we don’t even understand it most of the time. The stuff we do seems like we are just doing it because we want to, we have a desire to go here or there and we do it. But in fact things may be much more dramatic than that.
Anybody ever read CS Lewis’ book “That Hideous Strength” ? In the story there was a great spiritual battle going on. Each person had a part in that battle. But at the end, the gardener was asked what he thought, now that all the “big drama” was over with. He reckoned that all he had done was to keep the house running smoothly and had grown some very fine winter vegetables. In fact though, he had made a contribution to the outcome of the struggle.
I suppose the trick. . . and it is a really big trick, is to try to get in touch with the larger picture of our lives, if only once in a while. The picture that shows our “ordinary” life actually is part of something much bigger.
The rabbis teach that the balance between good and evil is constantly very closely balanced, and we can tip the scale in favor of good by one good deed, even a very small good deed will do.
But there will be many days when we just don’t know how we could possibly be making a difference in the world. One day however, it will become clear how our actions effected the universe, even if at the time all we thought we were doing was growing some very fine winter vegetables.