Meaning

This past week while my family and I were on vacation, we traveled through a few caves. I didn’t realize at the time that Missouri is known as the cave state with over 6,000 known caves. One moment we were on solid ground, and the next just a few hundred feet below the surface, it was like we were in a different world entirely.

***turning all the lights off and turning on a single lighter

While we were driving along Top or the Rock, the tallest point on Table Rock Lake, what used to be a pristine golf course has been for the past several years converted to a construction sight. Years ago, a sinkhole was discovered beneath the golf course (luckily during the middle of the night) and they began digging it out. While doing so, they discovered yet another cave. All this time, it was right below the surface.

Like the intricate network of vast caves waiting to be explored, meaning is the deeper stuff beneath the surface, and just like wonder, we can experience this in a myriad of ways.

This week, Psalm 19 talks about the voice of creation telling the story of the glory of God. This past week, I certainly saw the story of God revealed in and through creation day by day. The investment of Johnny Morris around conservation and preservation of Native American history helped me appreciate even more the many who have lived their lives as true conservators. When we stood in the rotunda entrance of the Wonders of Wildlife Aquarium, above the center door is this quote by Rev. Willie James Duncombe, “the Good Lord provided all the resources for us to enjoy. The outdoors belongs to Him. We are only using it for a while. Respect His great gifts and thank Him each day for providing them.”

The Psalm tells us that even without a word, all creation sings of God’s glory. Twentieth century Hebrewy poet H.N. Bialik calls this kind of descriptiveness “the language of images.” I want to read this passage again, from the Message translation. This time, I invite you to close your eyes as you listen and allow the language of images to dance across the screen of your mind’s eye.

“1-2 God’s glory is on tour in the skies,     God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame Day holds classes every morning,     Professor Night lectures each evening.

3-4 Their words aren’t heard,     their voices aren’t recorded, But their silence fills the earth:     unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.

4-5 God makes a huge dome     for the sun—a superdome! The morning sun’s a new husband     leaping from his honeymoon bed, The daybreaking sun an athlete     racing to the tape.

6 That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies     from sunrise to sunset, Melting ice, scorching deserts,     warming hearts to faith.

7-9 The revelation of God is whole     and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear     and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right,     showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain     and easy on the eyes. God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold,     with a lifetime guarantee. The decisions of God are accurate     down to the nth degree.

10 God’s Word is better than a diamond,     better than a diamond set between emeralds. You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,     better than red, ripe strawberries.”

Think about what flashed across your mind’s eye as I read. Sunsets. Melting ice. Diamonds. Strawberries. Maybe other things came into mind for you. How might the poetry of images around you each day lead you to holding God in awe? As the Psalmist says, “holding you in awe God is purifying. It endures.

Sometimes, meaning explodes into images and symbols and moments and rituals. Is there something for you (a symbol, a ritual, or a moment) that is so infused with meaning? Maybe to anyone else it would be nothing or coincidence, but to you, it is everything. Marcia McFee says we look for meaning in metaphors, saying we are “metaphoragers.”

A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me about this necklace I am wearing. Before I knew it, I went into a much longer answer than I intended about how much the necklace meant to me. I talked about how it was taken from the shards of stained glass from a broken window of my home church after it was struck by a tornado. It was the loaves and fishes window. I talked about the bubble in the glass that revealed the stress on the glass from the storm.

To anyone else, it’s just a necklace. To me, it’s a symbol ripe with the meaning of perseverance and faithfulness in the midst of stress, and of how God takes our remnants and provides.

In worship, we use all sorts of symbols and metaphors that are rich with meaning.

To some, it may be just some water. To us it marks our membership in the church and our identity as children of God.

To some, it is just some bread and juice. To us it is a sign of Christian fellowship and the body and blood of Christ.

To some, it’s a bunch of ancient words. To us it is the living Word that offers new mercies each morning.

To some, it’s some really old songs. To us it’s the narrative of our faith, the song of our salvation.

This Lenten season, might we be metaphoragers, discovering meaning all over the place.

What meaning might be found beneath the surface of your life? David Kessler talks about this a lot in his bereavement work. He calls the 6th stage of grief that of finding meaning. He believes we are naturally inclined towards meaning making. Marcia McFee says we are meaning mongers.When we fail to make meaning, we risk falling into what Viktor Frankl called the existential vacuum, or utter meaninglessness.

I was in a student organization at Kent State called the Point. We had t-shirts with a big point on them with the tagline “what’s the point?”

Lately, meaninglessness and fear and utter despair feel more tempting. Sarah Bessey says “the temptation is silence, maybe even disengagement. The temptation is to go, distract, get busy doing something else, avoid. The temptation is pick up things that don’t really matter, not really, because then our arms will be full and we won’t be able to take more of the heartache, too. ..to act as if you don’t matter, your voice doesn’t matter, to shout into the wind, to lash out and swing our weapons of fear and hopelessness and panic, becoming dealers of the very thing we decry.”

“What’s the point?” we want to cry out. How can we discern meaning in the garbage of pointlessness and rotten fruit? Does being a Christian still hold the weight of meaning, of goodness and beauty and light and justice for all people.

Just a week ago I stood at the funeral of a beloved lady and asked “what makes a life meaningful?” I shared her favorite scripture, one of the most famous passages, John 3:16. This verse is popular for many reasons, but I say it is a verse grounded firmly in the love of God for all people. For God so loved. This underlying root is something Viktor Frankl discovered and shared in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. In this book, he shared his experience in a concentration camp and the search for meaning in the midst of meaningless cruelty and death. On the other side of hopelessness and despair, Viktor chose love. He said “For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Folks, we are the people of God, the people of love. And while others may want to strip away meaning from anything and everyone, we have a song to sing, a candle to light, and a hope to proclaim.

Sarah Bessey wrote a beautiful post bout her own resolutions in our present wilderness.

She said

“Here we stand, the people of God- so, the people of Love- in the middle of the night, in the dangerous woods, in the soaking despair itself.

And here, in the teeth and mess and the maw of it all, we rise and we shine and we stand.

Like a candle on a lamp stand.

Like a city on a hill.

Like a flashlight in the forest.

Like a lantern on the prow of the ship in the storm.

Like a nightlight for a child afraid of the dark.

Like a bonfire on a beach.

And here we are, the people of God- so, the people of Love- who plant trees by streams of righteousness; whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations; whose roots go down deep into the soil of God’s love to bear the fruit of the Spirit embodying love and joy and peace, patience and kindness, goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and even yes, self-control.

Rather than trading shot for shot, despair for despair, I will step out of that cycle of death and walk straight out onto the water, with my eyes on Jesus. He is always making a path in the wildnerness, a way where there seems to be no way.

Love is the truest reality, I can’t be talked out of this.

Tyranny and hate and despair never win, not for long and not forever and certainly not now. Love out-prays, out-hustles, out-creates, outlasts.

Here in the midst of the dark times of despair, the people of hope and love are so doggedly frustratingly relentlessly bright. I want to stand near the light in hopes my own candle ignites.

Light it up.”