The Mosaic of our lives

 Blog – -The mosaic of our lives 

How do we reflect on our lives? Where do we begin? I focus here on four ideas that work together to launch us into reflecting on ourselves. Call them ideas for spiritually.

Just who are you? Who is living your life? This is the question of identity. Age, health, ethnicity and gender, occupation, social class placement—these all play into our identity. A checklist of these items is helpful. I’ll bet  there are some features of identity we would like to skip over. “Who am I?” can a challenging question.

What’s the  meaning of my life? This requires looking at a bigger picture than our identity, even the whole picture. This is really asking what your personal metaphysics is. Each of the religions tells us about the meaning of our lives. Secular scientific humanism has its own answer to the question. Of course, some views say that life has no meaning, and if that is what a person. belief, that is important, too.

As a Christian, I believe that my life takes place within the hand of God, and that my life is part of God‘s providence.

 Purpose. With my given identity, Within the framework of meaning that I hold to, what is the specific purpose of my life. As  a Christian, I believe that the purpose of my life is to contribute to God’s work of bringing the creation to fulfillment, while living a life of love – – loving others, and the world, as Jesus loved us. This is a very general statement of purpose, but it does help me to eliminate some possibilities, and embrace others. Amassing, wealth and becoming famous may be ruled out, for example.

Direction is the only one of these four that we have some control over. Meaning is given to us, or not. The same is true of our identity and our purpose, as well —it may be synonymous with our calling or vocation. These may be in place—or absent—while we are headed in the wrong direction. Direction, like identity is bound tightly to our situation in life. Those  of us who are past fourscore and ten years, for example, know our direction is conditioned by mortality. Nevertheless, we can map it out within the parameters of age.

Identity, meaning, purpose, and direction – – these are pieces in the mosaic  mosaic that is our life. It is the task for us, of personal reflection and even spirituality. These ideas only get us started, but at least it’s a start

(c) Phil Hefner, 3/1/2023