To Find Meaning

I want to begin by inviting you into an exercise in which I will ask you, for the next ten minutes or so, to try to suspend whatever beliefs-or disbeliefs-you might have about eternal life, death, and the soul, and to try to see these concepts through the lens of Jewish mysticism. Now I know that for some of you, this is asking a lot. Just listening to me say the words "eternal life" without squirming may be asking a lot. But for others, perhaps, it will not be such a stretch. Perhaps some of it rings true for you. Whatever your bent, I hope this exercise will be at least somewhat interesting.

Let me explain the theory.

Way back when, in the beginning of creation, God created a finite number of souls. These souls move back and forth between the material world and the heavenly realm, sometimes inhabiting a human body, and sometimes floating around as a spirit. A soul will typically inhabit a human body until the body dies, then the soul will stay in the spiritual world for some time in order to "regroup," if you will, and prepare itself for its next earthly excursion. To put it more personally, we are each inhabited by a soul that will move to the spiritual world for a time after our physical body dies. The soul will then reappear in another body in some future generation. This will continue on forever.

The belief is that a soul makes an agreement to come to human form in order to fulfill some mission, or work out some issue. Once the soul's sojourn in a particular body is completed, it passes back to the spirit world where it re-energizes itself and perhaps processes whatever it learned in that human lifetime. The soul, you see, is constantly evolving.

What do I mean by mission? Perhaps it is to fix mistakes of a past lifetime. It might be to assist another soul with its mission. It might be to offer love or guidance to someone, or to improve some social condition. It might be to work through past issues with other souls. It is believed that souls who knew each other in one lifetime often return together in order to work through a relationship. Certainly, there are a few people in your life with whom you have formed an immediate connection, as if you had known each other your whole lives. Perhaps, this theory suggests, your souls know each other.

Now I want you to think about this for a moment. This theory sets forth the notion that your soul, your spirit, came into your body-was born at this time in history, in this society, in your family-for a very specific reason. It has a mission.

What might that mission be?

Is it to continue the soul's own evolution through solving a problem, fixing a past mistake, working through a relationship, or learning to express itself through art or some other creative means?

Is it to help the soul evolve through love and guidance, through teaching or mentoring? Perhaps your soul was born into your family in order to help a family member in some way.

Or perhaps the soul in you is on a mission to serve the common good, through social work, education, or science.

Now, for some of us, these concepts mean little. They might even seem ridiculous. Few of us, however, can deny that they are appealing. How comforting to think that our souls, and those of our loved ones, live on and interact forever. It's a pleasing idea. For me, however, the most interesting concept in all this is that we have a singular mission in life. As I ponder the plausibility of such a theory, I experience a shift in mindset. It makes me feel a little more unique. Somehow, the idea of being on a mission makes me feel a little more important. And it's somewhat entertaining to take the occasional stab at what my mission in life might be.

Certainly, the idea that we're all here with a singular mission to fulfill recasts the old question "what is the meaning of life?" to a more personal and, I believe, more interesting, "what is the meaning of my life?"

Whether or not I truly hold this belief in the soul's mission, I find it helpful to live my life as if I do. Of course, I don't live my life as if I believe it, but it would be helpful to! Let me explain. I think I would bring a greater sense of purpose to all that I do if I took seriously the question: what is my singular mission in life?

Was I put on this earth for the sole purpose of raising my children? While this is my most cherished role in my life, I don't really think it's my singular mission. I'm not certain that I can offer my children anything extraordinary that any other parent might not offer. But suppose I approached parenting-even occasionally-as if it were my singular mission. I would remind myself to be more present, more often, with my children. I would probably slow down. I would definitely be more patient. The mundane moments-the endless rounds of the My Little Pony memory game-would feel a little more sublime. The stressful moments-the rush out the door in the morning with the backpacks and lunches and endless winter clothes and stuffed animal entourage-would take up less energy.

It could get tiresome, though, trying to approach everything in our lives as if it was our sole purpose for being here. Instead, I think, we need to let the meaning find us.

In his classic book, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl suggests that meaning can come through work or a deed, through caring for someone, or through creating something. And it's an awareness of this meaning that is our lifeblood, that keeps us going in times of anxiety or loneliness or strife. As long as we're aware that our life has some meaning-even if, at a particular moment, it's something as small as caring for a plant-we can carry on. Once we lose sight of that meaning, we give up on life.

Dr. Frankl was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps for three years during World War II. He was able to survive the experience because he never stopped thinking about two things that gave his life meaning-the love of his wife, and a manuscript that the Nazis destroyed and that he would re-write when he became free. These two things became the very reason for his existence. Although he was faced with unspeakable suffering each day, he held onto memories of his wife, and ideas for his manuscript, and he was able to survive. He wrote: "What was really needed was a fundamental change in [the prisoners'] attitude toward life. We had to learn that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to sop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly."

It does not matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.

We expect a lot from life. At least I do. I expect fairness, for things to work out for the best; I even expect happiness. When life fails to give me these things, I despair, or become angry. But it is at these very moments that I most need to ask what life expects of me. What is my mission? What is the meaning of my life? Or what can I do to create meaning?

Some years ago, I felt that life was withholding on me. Life didn't seem fair. Things weren't working out for the best. I certainly wasn't happy. I was burned out in a job that held no future prospects-one that I had fallen into and had never really liked in the first place. The problem was, I didn't know what I wanted to do. My friends were all settled firmly on career paths, some were starting families. I was floundering, completely clueless about the path I wanted my life to take. I felt disconnected from the people in my life. I felt disconnected from my life. Life held little meaning.

And then a woman with whom I was acquainted began to die. It seemed like something that would have little consequence to me. I knew this woman only because I used to care for her cats when she went away or went in for short hospital stays. But we would chat sometimes, and I would see her when I went to her apartment to return her key. Her name was Jean, and she loved her cats. She gave me intricate instructions for their care-who ate which kind of food, which toys were whose, and which tap I should turn on for them to drink from. And each time I visited, I did just as Jean wished, and played with them and turned on the tap for them and cut up their turkey pieces for them.

One afternoon, I went to Jean's apartment to find her in a great deal of discomfort. I didn't really know how ill she was. But I insisted she go to the hospital and I drove her there. She would not go home again.

She was in the hospital for five weeks. We chatted on the phone every few days. I'd call her from her apartment and she'd ask me to put the phone up to the cats so that she could talk to them. She would coo at them through the receiver. They were her only family.

One evening, I called her from her apartment as usual. "Julie, nobody's here," she said. "Could you come help me?" "Of course, Jean." I went to her room and she was there on the bed, an oxygen mask over her mouth and a tray of food in front of her.

And so, I helped Jean eat. I pulled her mask down and put a spoonful of yogurt in her mouth.

"You like baseball, Jean?" I asked, seeing that the Redsox were on her tv. "Oh yes," she said, and she told me how they were doing that season. And then she'd drift into incoherence.

I don't recall how long I stayed that night. But it was long enough to realize that I was watching a person die. At one point, she opened her eyes and cupped my chin in her hand and stroked my cheek with her fingers. She took my hand, said it was cold, and tucked it under her blanket.

I'll never forget Jean. I'll never forget being with her at the end of her life, and how my little, inconsequential life suddenly meant something. I was able to be there for someone, to offer a small kindness, a small comfort, when she needed it. I am fortunate that she called to ask me for help because I do not believe that I would have gone to her, otherwise. I was not paying close enough attention. Life was expecting something from me and I nearly missed the call.

Remember the man on the bus in Munich? We know nothing about him. The woman whose life he saved didn't even know his name. She never saw him again. Perhaps this man led a sad and lonely life. He could have been on his way home from a miserable job. He could have been on the edge of despair. And then came this opportunity to listen to his heart. He had a mission to fulfill. Lawrence Kushner writes, "… a task with your name on it finds you. You step forward and encounter your destiny… you must tell yourself the truth about where you have been placed and why."

May we all step forward and find the tasks with our names on them, the tasks that our hearts tell us must be done, and encounter our destinies again and again.

Julie Parker Amery