Spiritual Practices A to Z: Meaning

Spiritual Practices: Meaning

Enhances: Understanding

Balances/Counters: Cynicism, Shallowness

The Basic Practice

Meaning is a term that sums up spiritual life. Many people define spirituality as the search for purpose and meaning. This practice involves seeking and making.  But this is also a specific practice that can be learned, developed, and applied. It involves both seeking and making.

Seek meaning by looking for the big picture around all of your experiences. Look for patterns in the world and in your behavior. Make meanings by attaching symbols, stories, analogies, and metaphors to events and things. Learn more about how you can understand things whether that means taking a course, attending a lecture, or listening to a CD.

Why This Practice May Be For You

The universe is a friendly place, and everything in it has meaning and purpose. Nothing happens by chance. If we think nothing deserves to be taken seriously, then it is easy to regard what happens to us as insignificant and pointless. After all, what matters if the universe is characterized by random occurrences? On a personal level, this translates to the feeling that there is no direction to our lives.

If what you are doing doesn't seem important, it's time to work with the practice of meaning.

Quotes

Meaning does not come to us in finished form, ready-made; it must be found, created, received, constructed. We grow our way toward it.
— Ann Bedford Ulanov quoted in Dear Heart, Come Home by Joyce Rupp

We must remind ourselves that, though our lives are small and our acts seem insignificant, we are generative elements of this universe, and we create meaning with each act that we perform or fail to perform.
— Kent Nerburn in Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Insights from myth, dreams, and intuitions, from glimpses of an invisible reality, and from perennial human wisdom provide us with hints and guesses about the meaning of life and what we are here for. Prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action are the means through which we grow and find meaning.
— Jean Shinoda Bolen in Close to the Bone

Books

Ethical Wills - Putting Your Values on Paper by Barry K. Baines.

This book explores the questions that many people have: Have I fulfilled my purpose? What will I be remembered for? What kind of legacy have I passed along to my family and others?

The author is the Medical Director at Ucare, Minnesota, and Associate Medical Director of Hospice of the Twin Cities. He is also the CEO of The Legacy Center, an organization dedicated to preserving stories, values, and meaning for individuals, communities, and organizations.

I checked this book out from the library and was impressed with the usefulness and practical ideas for passing along one's personal values, beliefs, and advice to future generations.

The author believes that clarifying and communicating the meaning of our lives is not only important to our loved ones — it is a gift we owe ourselves. In the process of reflecting upon the past, learning about ourselves, pondering what we're willing to stand up for, facing our mortality, and writing down personal and family stories; we deepen and enrich our lives.

There are lots of exercises to help with the writing process and many examples of ethical wills written by people of all ages.

Because of this book, I have started on an ethical will to my daughters and started to refine my health care directive.

Film

Limbo, directed by John Sayles, is recommended for this spiritual practice.

Physicist Albert Einstein was once asked, "What's the most important question you can ask in life?" He replied, "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" In writer and director John Sayles's latest film, the open-ended finale gives you a chance to decide for yourself the answer to that poignant query.

The drama is set in the small town of Port Henry, Alaska, where tourism is the only business now that the timber mill and the salmon cannery have shut down. The two main characters are Joe Gastineau (David Strathairn), a moody handyman who is drenched in guilt over his role in the death of two people in a disaster aboard his boat, and Donna De Angelo (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a lounge singer who has dated a string of losers. He asks her and her troubled daughter Noelle (Vanessa Martinez) to join him on an outing on his boat. But some nasty business with his half-brother Bobby (Casey Siemaszko) strands the three of them on a deserted island in the wilds of Alaska.

This limbo they inhabit is a place of confinement, where they linger with the regrets of the life they've known and the very real possibility of death. They find a little shelter and forage for food in the woods and sea. But they each know that the chances of their being rescued are quite slim. This grim situation enables them to deal with the unfinished emotional business of their lives. Hobbled by fear, they inch their way toward the healing power of love, forgiveness, and mutual caring.

I checked out the movie from the library, but didn't have time to watch it. It seems like by the time that I have a block of time to watch a movie I am too tired to enjoy it. Perhaps some day I can circle back and watch this movie.

Music

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler wrote Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) in 1908 - 1909 shortly after the death of his favorite daughter from scarlet fever and after he was diagnosed with a debilitating heart condition.

Consisting of six movements, the composition is based on Chinese poems about loneliness, youth, beauty, renewal, and death. This powerful yet supremely poignant music covers a wide range of emotions as the composer reaches for meaning in the face of death.

In the final section, "The Farewell," words added by Mahler reveal that he has found it: "The dear earth everywhere blossoms in spring and grows green again. Everywhere and eternally the distance shines bright and blue. Eternally."

This CD was available at the library. I listened to the beginning of it, but didn't listen to the whole thing. It's beautiful music, but I wasn't in the right place mentally to listen and enjoy it. These past few months have felt rushed and I haven't put the effort (like I should) into fully exploring this spiritual practice.

Art

George Segal's white plaster sculptures are composed of figures of human beings involved in mundane activities. "People have attitudes locked up in their bodies and you have to catch them," the artist wrote. This is his quest for meaning and our chance to make a spiritual reading of his art.

Look at Bus Riders in which Segal presents four figures caught in a moment of time. What does their body language reveal about their personalities and characters? And what does the sculpture as a whole say about our times?

As I look at the sculpture, I see four people so close to one another yet in their own worlds. They look like they each have their minds and attention focused on other things - either out the window of the bus or internally.

In some respects, I see isolation and loneliness in this grouping of four people. No one is engaged in conversation or actively wanting to connect or reach out to others. It's not much different than life nowadays with people so connected to their devices rather than one another.

Daily Cue, Reminder, Vow, Blessing

• Reading a new book is a cue for me to participate in the great adventure of finding meaning.

I read "The Priority List - A Teacher's Final Quest to Discover Life's Greatest Lessons" by David Menasche. This was an interesting book in concept. However, I was hoping to read more about the interactions with the teacher's students from the past and his impact on their lives.

• When I hear a soul-stirring lecture, I am reminded of my obligation to make meaning from my experiences.

This hasn't happened to me recently.

• When I leave a theater after seeing a movie, I vow to ponder its meanings slowly and seriously.

Haven't gone to see a movie recently either.

Practice of the Day

Today's headlines, viewed with the right consciousness, can be seen as a living alphabet through which humanity comes to know itself and God. A deeper meaning is revealed.
— Corrine McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson in Spiritual Politics

To Practice This Thought: Scan the headlines in today's newspaper. What do they tell you about yourself, your world, and God?

I'm not sure what paper to read to get a positive outlook and meaning on humanity. If anything, the papers are rather depressing and frightening at this point in time. There is so much negativity, hatred, terrorism, and fear in the world. Each year seems to get more frightening than the previous year.

Some of the headlines from yesterday's main section of the paper:
- Cohen sent to prison for 3 years
- Police call officer shortage a "crisis"
- As trade war drags, soybeans sit in bins
- 5 convicted in decade of trafficking
- U.S. diplomats who fell ill in Cuba had injured ears
- Scandal-tainted cardinals out
- Countries see little progress at climate talks
- Island nations, threatened by rising seas, push for action

The Minnesota news isn't much better:
- New ideas for cops on rape cases
- To catch a porch package thief
- In Duluth, U finalist confronts concerns
- Bad valve at refinery led to blast
- Met Council OKs barriers to protect metro  Transit bus drivers

What these headlines tell me about myself is that I live by values that are vastly different than the ones who are mentioned in these stories. As I read these titles, there isn't one that is positive. The world is changing to something I no longer recognize or, in some ways, feel comfortable being around.

How different life was like 30,40, 50 years ago. I can't even imagine how much different life was like 100 years ago. In the greater scheme of life and the world, that's not a long time. Yet in that short timeframe, human nature and the world has changed greatly.

Spiritual Exercises

Before you pick up a new book or magazine, or as you sit down to watch a video or listen to some music, pause and ask Spirit to open your heart, mind, and soul through the spiritual practice of meaning. Call in wisdom. Later, before leaving this learning experience, say a blessing for the author or the artist to convey your thanks for his or her contribution to your life.

SPECIAL PROJECT: Make your own Book of Meaning. In a blank notebook, copy quotes that speak to your understanding of yourself, the world, and God. Paste in photographs that touch your soul, adding captions about what the image says to you. Get in the habit of regularly writing in your book "spiritual readings" of your relationships, work, body, hobbies, and current events.

I have something like this - a book of quotes. It's a positive, uplifting book to read. I do not have photographs in it. In some ways, my nature journal - with writing, photos, and images from magazines is like that.

It would be good to get in a regular habit of writing and documenting my life. Perhaps in 2019.

Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat contains more than 650 short excerpts, collected from a wide variety of sources, that reveal a spiritual perspective on everyday life. Reading them will be particularly helpful training sessions for this special project in making meanings.

I checked this book out of the library. The book is organized by topic (e.g., creativity, hope, nature, animals) and there are excerpts from books and other resources. I particularly liked the chapters I noted as well as one on service.

Journal Exercises

• At one time or another, we all have to ask whether spiritual meaning is found in security or risk, certainty or doubt. In your journal, make a list of the places where you have looked for meaning. Make a second list of the places where you haven't looked. Write the reasons why you have looked where you have and not looked elsewhere.

Discussion Questions, Storytelling, Sharing

• Describe a recent situation where you consciously asked yourself, what is the meaning of this? What did you learn?

• What elements of contemporary culture serve as blocks or obstacles to your interest in the spiritual practice of meaning? How do you deal with them?

Household, Group, and Community Projects

• Create a mural of proverbs in your home. These brief sayings carry wisdom from the past and different cultures. Many also contain spiritual advice such as "Silence is golden." Check the library for collections of proverbs.

I checked out the book The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs by J.A. Simpson. It was interesting to see how many proverbs my parents used when I was growing up, and ones that I still use today.

These are some of the proverbs that I remember hearing or that I think are good advice:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
A man is known by the company he keeps.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
A stitch in time saves nine.
A watched pot never boils.
A woman’s work is never done.
A word to the wise is enough.
After a storm comes a calm.
All that glitters is not gold.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All’s fair in love and war.
All’s well that ends well.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
An apple never falls far from the tree
Appearances are deceptive
April showers bring May flowers.
As you make your bed, so you must lie upon it.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Beggars can’t be choosers
Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.
Better late than never.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Blood is thicker than water.
Business before pleasure.

If you notice - these are only ones that begin with the letters A and B. There are many more starting with the letters C-Y (there are none that start with Z).

• Make a household commitment to each learn at least one new thing every week. Consider these sources of meanings: lectures at libraries, conference centers, bookstores; encyclopedias and other reference books; television documentaries. Report on the most interesting things you are learning during one of your meals together.

We do learn something new each week - sometimes almost every day. At this stage of our life, with both Sophia and Olivia in high school, we are always reading something for one of the girls' classes. Talking with others invariably leads to learning new things as well. There's so many opportunities to learn something new each day.

• Sharing meanings within a group context is also a rewarding activity. Here are some "meaning" discussion starters: What ritual, holiday, or possession means the most to you? What a landscape or place has special meaning for you. Recall a meaningful moment from childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, elderhood. When have you found meaning in suffering? Have you ever felt deprived of meaning?

All these answers to these questions would be far too long for a post. These are better written about in my journal.

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The ideas in this post are from Spirituality and Practice.