Finding Meaning
Posted by David on Oct 29 2009
I love Babylon 5. It’s a science fiction series unlike any other and remains my favourite to this day; I find I don’t have to watch many episodes to remember why. Today’s was a sermon on finding meaning in life and in death, and how it isn’t being remembered that is important, but the way you lived out the moments. The idea that what’s important is whether you lived up to the ideals of your heart and spirit, whether you made the right choices even if nobody would see you go down in glory for them.
One of the Rangers (the Anla-Shok) felt fear before rushing to save someone’s life, because he didn’t know the situation, because he didn’t know if rushing in to try to save somebody would give him a meaningless death. His teachers response was very poignant:
“We create the meaning in our lives. It does not exist independently. Being Anla-shok does not mean worrying about what others will think about us. It does not mean deciding what to do based upon whether or not it serves our sense of ego or destiny. It means living each moment as if it were your last one. It means doing each right thing because it is the right thing. The scale doesn’t matter. The where, the when, the how, or in what cause… none of those things matter. In my life, I’ve discovered very few truths. Here is the greatest truth I know: Your death, Rastenn, will have a meaning if it comes while you’re in fullest pursuit of your heart.”
In the modern world it’s so difficult to truly follow your heart, so easy to let ego get in the way even when you do, and so very tough to feel like each of the moments has value. When you find a job that really fulfils you or a calling that might dominate your life, you’re lucky to have found a piece of that, but most of the time the general chatter and noise of life makes it hard to even know what your heart is saying. The background noise is very loud indeed.
I think it is something for which we should all be searching. Not the pursuit of riches, but the pursuit of our own heart in each positive action we take.
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