“What should I do?” is one of the core questions of spirituality. The question comes up throughout our lives: choosing a career, a place to live, whether to marry, anytime we’re faced with a big decision, or, for me, as I concluded thirty years in the ministry last year, and began retirement. Does it matter how we spend our days? Are we living for something or merely living?
A year ago, I retired. For thirty years I had served our Unitarian Universalist churches throughout the greater Los Angeles area: Verdugo Hills, Santa Clarita, Los Angeles, Long Beach. I spent one wonderful year commuting to Bakersfield. My final post, for three years, was an interim ministry with the Studio City church, the same church where I had done my internship as a student minister thirty years earlier.
I had a satisfying career, and after a final sermon, titled, “The Last Word” and many heartfelt goodbyes to the congregation that both launched my ministry and brought it to a close, I was done. My husband and I gathered a few last belongings from my church office, I took down the sign for the reserved parking spot that had my name on it for a souvenir, we drove off, and went to brunch. And that was that.
I was ready to leave the ministry. I had done a lot of different varieties of work: small churches, large, long-term, short. Some of it was challenging. Much of it very rewarding. I learned a lot. I had wonderful opportunities, and wonderful congregations, and cherished the privilege to do a job that inspired me, gave me room to express my creativity, made a difference in people’s lives, and gave me a paycheck.
But the job had reached its end for me. I was no longer growing as a minister. I started to encounter the same issues with church budgets and buildings and vision, issue I’d tackled before and knew how to work through from experience. After nearly one thousand sermons I’d pretty much asked every spiritual question I could think of, and answered them, to my own satisfaction, if not always for every person in the pew.
I was still doing good work, maybe the best I’d done, but I was coasting. I had done what I was capable of doing as a minister and rather than going around and around again on the same wheel, I knew that there were other parts of myself to explore. With maybe another thirty years of life still ahead of me, I wanted new challenges to face, different work to do.
So, I’ve spent the last year writing short stories instead of sermons. I hope to start a novel soon. I’ve been practicing my drawing skills and look forward to starting painting. My undergraduate degree from Cal Arts was in music composition and I’d like to pick that up again, too. And there’s the traveling that a lot of retirees do. And time to read novels. And going to the gym, and seeing friends, and the grocery shopping and laundry, that everyone does.
But the question that quickly arose, after Jim and I drove away from the Studio City church a year ago, and after brunch, and after a few weeks of just enjoying the first vacation I had in thirty years that didn’t include checking my email and turning over sermon ideas in my sleep, I started to ask, what is life for?
As a minister, I knew what my life was for. The church called me and was willing to pay me for my work because my service was valuable to them. I helped. I guided. I consulted. I made tough decisions and delivered bad news. I inspired. I healed. The congregation showed up Sunday after Sunday to hear what I’d been thinking about during the work expressed with all the art I could offer. Visitors found a new home in the church. New members found a community. Long time members found a faith.
That was good work, work that mattered, with obvious worth.
But now, in retirement, what was I doing? What did anyone care if I traveled or stayed home, read great literature, or binged watch Netflix? I would never have the devoted audience for my short stories that I had for my sermons. Does the world really need my novel? Was I making art only for my personal pleasure? Well probably, humbly. And if so, why bother? What was it for?
And suddenly those thirty looming years of retirement took on a different cast. That’s a lot of time. That’s a lot of resources consumed and waste to leave behind. That’s a lot of space to fill and life to live through and use up. Was it enough merely to unspool my life in idle pursuits? Was that kind of life enough to justify the great gift of life that I’d been given, that we’ve all been given?
For thirty years I’d been preaching that there was right and wrong in life, better and worse ways to act in life, noble work, dreams to achieve, heights to reach for, human enterprises that demanded personal sacrifice and universal goals worth giving your life to. Was I now to selfishly hold on to a life spent only on myself?
Retirement is a poignant time to ask that question. But we face that question at every time of life. Choosing a first job, changing careers in mid-life, getting married or not, having children, or not, giving to charity, volunteering, joining the cause, or not joining the cause. Choosing what to do is the first task of every day. “What do I do, now?” is the perennial question. Provided we can support ourselves or find someone to support us, we’re free to do just about anything. But are there better ways to spend our days, worthy lives, good lives? Does life, or God, or the Universe ask something from us, in return for the life given to us? Is there some goal, some purpose, greater than simply keeping ourselves alive, that we could
Our hymnal seems to think so.
Several times in the readings and hymn texts of Singing the Living Tradition, a higher purpose is assumed.
In the words I chose for today’s reading, Vincent B. Silliman says, speaking of religion: “Let it be to us hope and purpose, and a discovering of opportunities to express our best through daily tasks.”
Our Opening Hymn gives us both a lofty goal and a purpose for our lives: “With heart and mind and voice and hand may we this time and place transcend to make our purpose understood: a mortal search for mortal good, a firm commitment to the goal of justice, freedom, peace for all.”
A search for mortal good. The goal of justice, freedom, peace.
Here are some others:
In hymn number 143, “Not in Vain the Distance Beacons”, we sing, “doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs…, See the vision of the world, and all the wonder that shall be, hear the war-drum throb no longer, see the battle flags all furled, in the parliament of freedom, federation of the world.”
Hymn number 303, “We Are the Earth Upright and Proud” says that our human purpose is the earth’s purpose working through us. “We are the earth upright and proud; in us the earth is knowing. Its winds are music in our mouths, in us its rivers flowing… and with its purpose strong, we sing earth’s pilgrim song.” And what is that purpose? The second verse tells us, “We dedicate our minds and hearts, to order, beauty bringing. Our labor is our strength; our love will win at length; Our minds will find the ways to live in peace and praise.”
World community. Lasting peace. Order. Beauty. Love. Peace and praise. Those are the goals we should tune our lives to, says the hymn.
Hymn number 114, “Forward through the Ages” doesn’t name the goal but speaks of a divine call that all faithful spirits answer, “Bound by God’s far purpose in one living whole, move we on together to the shining goal.”
But what is it? What is the goal?
In hymn number 158, “Praise the Source of Faith and Learning” the text praises the work of the human arts of science, faith, and wonder, for exploring the underlying purpose of existence, but despairs that human minds can ever truly know it. The text concedes, “Far beyond our calculation lies a depth we cannot sound where the purpose for creation and the pulse of life are found.”
Perhaps we’ll never know. The hymn texts and readings suggest several answers, but without certainty. The texts acknowledge our feeling that there ought to be a larger purpose, but demurs from naming it or claims such certain knowledge is beyond our reach. Perhaps we’ll never know.
But that shouldn’t phase Unitarian Universalists. Right? Certainty has never been our creed. We’re used to acknowledging the limits of what we can know and are careful in the realm of faith not to state as truth what we cannot actually know.
Yet while humbly admitting our human limits, Unitarian Universalists are bold to throw possible answers against the dark walls of the universe. At least provisionally. At least until better evidence comes along. We say, in order to get through this day with the best I’m able and to make the best life possible for myself, for each other, and for the world we share: here is what I will claim as my faith.
So I may be wrong, but every particle of my being tells me that there is a larger goal for existence that I am called to give my life to. It just feels like life has meaning and purpose, so I start there. And applying my reason to that feeling that life matters, I conclude that the universal goal must be something that all persons can contribute to in some ways, meaning not just working folks, but retired folks, too. And also seven-year olds who don’t produce very much, and babies, and aged-folks entirely bed-ridden. After all, we used to have a UU principle (until we threw out the Seven Principles, grumble, grumble) about the inherent worth and dignity of every human being: “inherent” meaning not dependent on making or doing anything, but worthy simply through the fact of living. And, because human beings are not alone in living, the universal goal must be relevant to all living things. And because aligning our lives requires an act of choosing freely between better and worse possible futures, the universal goal must be relevant to all forms of existence capable of hearing the divine call and making a choice for or against the direction of its urging: that is: all conscious beings.
So what could that be?
What could satisfy the requirements of a truly universal goal?
Let me offer several possibilities. Some of them came up in those hymn texts I just read.
Peace, I propose, could be a universal goal. By peace, I mean not merely the end of war, but the reconciling of differences that separate and divide creation. Eliminating the dualities. I can see peace-making as both a goal to guide personal life choices as well as a goal for all existence.
Beauty, could be a universal goal. Making, increasing, beauty. Beauty also has the status of being one of the three transcendental qualities, along with the good and the true. The transcendentals being the deep existence underlying all creation.
The true might be a universal goal, expressed as the character of Wisdom. Self knowledge and knowledge of the universe is a worthy goal, and the universe knowing itself, as in that hymn I quoted, might be a goal for the universe.
The Good could be understood as a goal of fitting oneself into the Order of the universe in the Taoist manner: the sense that the universe has a structure, governed by laws, and that all things have a proper place. You might think of the character Monica from the television show Friends exemplifying this goal. This vase belongs here on this bureau because that is the right place for a vase to be.
All of these goals have their shadow sides of course, if misapplied or taken to extremes.
Here are some other candidates for universal goals.
Service, I think. Being a helper, a healer, a teacher, a companion.
Novelty. The goal of creation, bringing new things into being. Fantasy. Imagination.
Loyalty could be a universal goal. The goal of giving oneself to higher things. A principled life. The religious goal of worship.
Power might also be a goal. I mean power in the best sense as the ability to achieve purpose. Becoming strong and effective so that one can accomplish helpful, good things is a worthy personal goal, and maybe a universal goal.
Perhaps one of those possibilities attracts you or seems to name the kind of purpose you’re giving your life to. Wisdom and beauty speak to me. I think they’re all valid. And there may be others, too.
But I have an intuition that a universal goal ought to be singular, not multiple. There ought to be a universal goal, not a list of options, for simplicities sake if nothing else. After all, ordering your life around a goal of peace-making might lead to very different choices than ordering your life around creating novelty, or developing power.
So to take the question, “What is life for?” to the deepest level, we might ask, of all those possible goals, “What is the goal of the goal?” “What is the goal for?” “Why pursue beauty, or peace, or service to others, and so on?” Power to do what, exactly?
And when I ask that question, I’m led again and again to a single, ultimate goal.
The goal of goals. The goal for all existence. The goal at every stage of life. The goal of every form of work, and for those who don’t work, and for those incapable of work but who are merely living.
It’s a goal I haven’t named yet. A single word. A small word but a great word. A three-letter word.
Joy.
The universe wants joy.
The earth wants our joy
God wants your joy.
Deep, satisfying, ecstatic, full-feeling and fulfilling, joy. The largest joy you can have for yourself and the most joy you can make for others. Joy in work. Joy in rest. Joy in every doing and Joy in simply being. Joy in every stage of life, and joy in every form of life.
The purpose of life is to make joy, spread joy, have joy, be joy.
However you name the divine, whatever that thing is to you that is larger than your ego alone and that calls you to your highest and best, that thing wants your joy. Not just your selfish pleasure, but your soul-expanding joy. Your self-fulfilled is your joyful being.
If it creates joy in you, then the joy of the universe is increased. If your living makes joy in others, then the joy of the universe is increased.
Not that every moment of life will be joyful, the universe isn’t designed to guarantee that. The indeterminacy of the universe increases the risk of failure but also increases the level of joy achievable. But the goal is joy. The pursuit of joy. The expansion of joy. For yourself and for all existence.
Why should we clothe the naked and feed the hungry and release the captive? For joy. Why should we work to liberate the oppressed? For joy.
Why should we praise God and sing hymns and dance ecstatically? For joy.
Why should we preserve the environment, and conserve resources for future generations, and vote to defend democracy and protect our freedoms? For joy?
Why should we love our neighbors and build strong churches, and go to work or school, or retire from work and paint beautiful paintings, and write short stories and cook amazing dinners for our friends? For joy. Because our living is joyful. Because it makes our lives joyful.
Joy for you may be found in peace-making, creating beauty or admiring beauty, acquiring wisdom or teaching others, helping or serving, or moving that vase back to the place on the bureau the vase is supposed to go.
Or joy might be simply sitting, resting, meditating, praying, turning another page in an engrossing novel, or watching one more episode of your favorite TV show.
If it’s for joy, it’s answering the call divine.
Joy is you being you, the deepest, truest, most essential you you can be. The place where you connect to that ultimate expression of being that connects all things, there you will find your Joy and the joy of being.
Life is for that purpose. To move the universe toward Joy, and you along with it.
To seek, and find, and generate, and expand, and live in Joy.