Unity of Birmingham Guest Writer Series:
By Jane Phillips
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” Joshua J. Marine
The opening lines of Ecclesiastes in the New International Version of the Holy Bible are: “Meaningless! Meaningless...Everything is meaningless!” Sometimes it seems so, doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s because meaning is assigned by the person experiencing the event. As we know, two people experiencing the same incident may assign radically different meaning to it depending on their personal history. We get a dose of that daily in our political life.
It seems to be a purely human behavior to assign meaning to random happenings. We see signs in the stars, in the weather, in the sudden death of a loved one, in meeting a stranger whom we instantly know will change our lives. We talk about fate, destiny, past life relationships, soulmates. None of these “meanings” can be proven; there is no concrete evidence for their validity, and yet we build our lives around them, and deeply believe in their significance.
There is nothing at all wrong with that—it’s purely human.
We want life to have meaning, so we create it. Sometimes we interpret situations in negative ways; we create dilemmas for ourselves. Struggle is a necessary complication that helps us to evolve both emotionally and physically. It forces us to develop core strengths, to recognize our own vulnerability and resilience. We find out what we are truly made of and what we deeply believe.
When there are no challenges in our lives, we get bored, we become restless. Then, we go out and create something that will energize and motivate us. We create our own chaos, we engage in drama, we struggle. If we’re sufficiently conscious, we will realize we’re creating situations to break out of our lethargy. If not, we will blame others for the messy position we find ourselves in. Sometimes, we even create the same difficulties in multiple relationships and settings over an entire lifetime. That’s because we are straining toward wholeness and need to see that outcome more than once to truly understand it.
The bottom line: It’s all good! Finding meaning in good situations and bad, is essential to human mental health and happiness. Even though the meanings we assign to events in our lives are sometimes painful, they keep our soul on the path of growth. Our individual struggles further the evolution of all humanity. And that is what we’re here for—to take those essential baby steps toward wholeness because the World Soul, which we call God, depends on us for its own evolution.
In the Spirit,
Jane
Jane Philips is a retired Special Education teacher, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Licensed Massage Therapist. She has also lead Spirituality Groups, Wisdom Circles, drumming circles, and she wrote a daily blog for twelve years called Spiritually Speaking.
Jane is currently working on a memoir titled, Old Crazy Town. She is a fifth-generation quilter.
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