3) Letter from the Vicarage - March 2010
This is the monthly letter from our Vicar, the Revd Dr Sebastian Mattapally, to our Church of England Parish (covering Kirdford, Plaistow, Ifold, Durfold Wood, Shillinglee and Strood Green) as published in our parish magazine, the Parish News.
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Searching for meaning in life –
a meditation for Lent
This year the Season of Lent has come by earlier thon usual. We are already in that particular time of year which we consider as a time of spiritual renewal. The liturgy of this time constantly reminds us of the need for conversion of heart and turning to God. The following message might help you to reflect on what we are about in life.
Life is all about meaning more than just about matter. Victor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" speaks about the human predicament in the sense that human existence, unlike non-human, is a relentless search to make sense of life, the earth, the world of cosmos and universe at large.
Meaning is so crucial and so important that human beings are ready to struggle, sweat and even die in their search for it. Furthermore, people are not always happy with temporary happiness or meaning either. Rather, they would like to possess complete, eternal meanings. It is not enough to make sense of life on earth but it is also important to make sense of life after this life.
That is why religions are as significant, or more, than education systems, or cultural and scientific meanings. Since the Creator seems to have lost control of creation – at least apparently according to some people – and humanity have ploughed or are still ploughing a furrow of their own, not always according to the Creator's story line and blue-print, the search for meaning increasingly becomes more complicated, difficult and not always devoid of pain and struggle against oneself.
The absolutely faulty story line of Western civilisation, to say the least, has been the glorification of "self", "the individual", "personal happiness" when compared with that of the African and other civilisations that glorify community, relationship, communion of hearts. The whole political and social philosophy of Tanzania, where I happily lived for several years, is based on the Kiswahili word "ujamaa" which means community, brotherhood. The West instead, in the process of seeking meaning, has ended up in narcissism and radical, unfettered individualism with its unwritten plot to the story line, "the end justifies the means." This is indeed a very untenable and tragic situation that Western civilisation seems to have fallen into and is pulling the rest of the world into its vortex.
We are, therefore, not on the periphery but on the precipice of utter disaster and annihilation of human existence unless humanity re-writes its story line and searches for true meanings based not on what satisfies the senses or feelings only, but what truly fulfils the innate thirst for true love, true beauty, true splendour, all of which cannot be achieved with a simply egoistic, selfish, individualistic, addictive obsession to mere pleasure and mere satisfactions at all levels, especially sensual and sense-related.
True meaning can be grasped, experienced and lived if you are willing to live a radical story line based absolutely on God who became Man in Jesus Christ and in his Kingdom based on his "good news" of love, an unconditional love that does not count the cost and that proclaims a message of hope even in the worst-case scenario of life!
Have a happy and holy season of Lent!
Sebastian Mattapally