Seeking Truth

What would you do the whole meaning of this life was…this life?  I don’t mean that this is the only life we have, or that there is no afterlife.  Rather, I mean what if this life itself is the very gift of God – that the whole purpose of living is to live it well, to fill it with joy and to share that joy with others?

This morning in the small hours between my first alarm – the one that is meant to begin my waking process on work days – and my last alarm set to awaken me for a morning in church, I had a dream.  It was one of those clear, lucid dreams that feel so real you think you are awake.

I was standing in an extremely clean, white room with windows that spanned a whole wall from floor to ceiling.  Outside, I could see an expanse of green trees and grass, wild animals and birds.  I wasn’t alone in the room.  My daughter Heidi was there, talking with my friend Rosemary.  I could feel my husband Bill’s presence, but I could not see him.  I was standing near the window, talking with a young Jewish man who looked for all the world like the singer Josh Groban.

The young man had just appeared next to me and said, quite clearly, “You who are here are special.  You know the Truth.  The Truth is that there is no deeper Secret.  There is just your life.  The Secret is in your lives.  There is no reason to seek a deeper Truth, yet there is no reason not to do so, if in the seeking one finds Joy.”

Just before I woke up, I heard him say, one more time, “Yes, you who are here are Special.  The Truth is in your lives.”

What would it mean if this were the truth?  The meaning of “life, the universe, and everything” isn’t “42,” but life itself.  What if in seeking meaning, some of us lose our chance at finding it?  What if, in seeking meaning, we find great happiness?  For many of us, it is the seeking that brings us peace and gives us the impetus for service, for worship, and for sharing the joy that we find in the process.

Which kind of seeker are you?