Not quite forlorn
28/09/12 05:34
One of the pleasures of this phase of my life is that I have been able to return to thinking a bit about philosophy. I enjoyed studying philosophy in college and took enough courses for a philosophy major, but my seminary studies led me in another direction. Graduation from seminary filled my life with practical needs. Earning a living and raising a family meant that my mind needed to be occupied with the concerns of everyday living.
Nonetheless, I have always been a bit of a philosophical thinker and I applied some of the things I have learned from philosophy to the tasks I had in my life. I have long woven bits of the philosophy of religion into my sermons and professional writings.
What is different about this life phase is that I seem to have a bit more time for reading. My reading these days is a bit random. I read a fair number of novels and I enjoy reading personal essays when I can find well-written ones. I always have a volume of poetry and lately I’ve been Emily Dickinson, which inspires philosophical thinking.
I suppose the basic question is about the meaning of life, but that leads to questions about what it means to have a life that is well lived. Why do some lives have more impact than others? Why are some people more joyful than others? What are the things that foster contentment? Philosophy always yields more questions than answers.
Recently I was a part of a group of people who were concluding a project that we have shared for many years. The event was primarily focused on the joys and possibilities of the new things that are emerging to take the place of the work that is completed, but there were moments for nostalgia and a few moments for confession and reconciliation. We acknowledged that we are human, that our work had been imperfect. We had made mistakes and we had learned from our mistakes.
At some point, a phrase came to my mind, but I couldn’t remember its source. I knew it went something like this: “I am confident that I am not quite forlorn.” I didn’t have the quote quite right, and I didn’t remember the source. But it seemed to speak a bit to the sense that I may not be perfect, but I have had a good life and have been a part of some good things.
The real quote is from Kafka: “I too can live in the confidence that I am not quite forlorn.” Like many other Kafka quotes, it is a gem that is situated in a strange place in a strange story. It comes from “Investigations of a Dog,” a story in which the narrator is a dog that has an incredibly large vocabulary as he describes his own point of view on life.
Kafka was an early 20th century writer of short stories and novels, born to a German-speaking family in Prague. During his life, only a few of his works were published: a couple of collections of short stories and stories that were printed in magazines. With the rise of existentialist philosophies in the period between the first and second World Wars, his work gained more attention. Both Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are said to have been heavily influenced by Kafka’s works. Many American college students know his 1912 story, “The Metamorphosis,” as it is a common assignment in college literature classes.
“Investigations of a Dog” comes from about a decade later, close to the end of Kafka’s life. He was only 40 when he died, but his death came after a long struggle with tuberculosis, so he had quite a bit of time to contemplate both the reality of dying and the meaning of life as he faced the end. One has to believe that “Investigations of a Dog” came, in part, from his own wrestling with the meaning of life and his place in it. Kafka wouldn’t have known, at the time he wrote the story, that he would become famous after his death and that his writings would be celebrated a century after he penned them. He might well have considered himself to be an average or perhaps even mediocre writer.
The same is true of us. We really do not know the impact we have had on the lives of others. Many of the results of the work we are doing appear only decades later. Many are never reported or fully known. We do what we do because we are called to do it. And, for the most part, we do our best, without knowing how good our best really is. Most of us are not destined for fame or recognition. It is enough to live our lives and do our work.
Still, we feel called to excellence. The abundance of God is so great that we are inspired to want to do great things and to offer our best to this world. We don’t want to just get by – we don’t want to be humdrum or average. We strive to excel. Most of us can think of others who are better than we at the things we love to do. We try to learn from them, be inspired by them, and strive to become, in some ways like them.
On Monday, I was privileged to hear an outstanding sermon. I like to call some of the people I hear “preacher’s preachers.” By that I mean someone who is so good at the craft of preaching that she can inspire a room full of preachers. This was one of those sermons. I was amazed at how our preacher opened up the texts to both show us how we fit into a larger picture of God’s continuing creating in this world and inspire hope in the future that lies ahead. Afterwards, I remember thinking to myself, “I wish I could do as well with my preaching.”
Along the way, however, it is good to know that even though I often fall short of my own expectations, all is not lost. I still have value and meaning and purpose in this life.
“I can live in the confidence that I am not quite forlorn.”
Nonetheless, I have always been a bit of a philosophical thinker and I applied some of the things I have learned from philosophy to the tasks I had in my life. I have long woven bits of the philosophy of religion into my sermons and professional writings.
What is different about this life phase is that I seem to have a bit more time for reading. My reading these days is a bit random. I read a fair number of novels and I enjoy reading personal essays when I can find well-written ones. I always have a volume of poetry and lately I’ve been Emily Dickinson, which inspires philosophical thinking.
I suppose the basic question is about the meaning of life, but that leads to questions about what it means to have a life that is well lived. Why do some lives have more impact than others? Why are some people more joyful than others? What are the things that foster contentment? Philosophy always yields more questions than answers.
Recently I was a part of a group of people who were concluding a project that we have shared for many years. The event was primarily focused on the joys and possibilities of the new things that are emerging to take the place of the work that is completed, but there were moments for nostalgia and a few moments for confession and reconciliation. We acknowledged that we are human, that our work had been imperfect. We had made mistakes and we had learned from our mistakes.
At some point, a phrase came to my mind, but I couldn’t remember its source. I knew it went something like this: “I am confident that I am not quite forlorn.” I didn’t have the quote quite right, and I didn’t remember the source. But it seemed to speak a bit to the sense that I may not be perfect, but I have had a good life and have been a part of some good things.
Kafka was an early 20th century writer of short stories and novels, born to a German-speaking family in Prague. During his life, only a few of his works were published: a couple of collections of short stories and stories that were printed in magazines. With the rise of existentialist philosophies in the period between the first and second World Wars, his work gained more attention. Both Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre are said to have been heavily influenced by Kafka’s works. Many American college students know his 1912 story, “The Metamorphosis,” as it is a common assignment in college literature classes.
The same is true of us. We really do not know the impact we have had on the lives of others. Many of the results of the work we are doing appear only decades later. Many are never reported or fully known. We do what we do because we are called to do it. And, for the most part, we do our best, without knowing how good our best really is. Most of us are not destined for fame or recognition. It is enough to live our lives and do our work.
Still, we feel called to excellence. The abundance of God is so great that we are inspired to want to do great things and to offer our best to this world. We don’t want to just get by – we don’t want to be humdrum or average. We strive to excel. Most of us can think of others who are better than we at the things we love to do. We try to learn from them, be inspired by them, and strive to become, in some ways like them.
On Monday, I was privileged to hear an outstanding sermon. I like to call some of the people I hear “preacher’s preachers.” By that I mean someone who is so good at the craft of preaching that she can inspire a room full of preachers. This was one of those sermons. I was amazed at how our preacher opened up the texts to both show us how we fit into a larger picture of God’s continuing creating in this world and inspire hope in the future that lies ahead. Afterwards, I remember thinking to myself, “I wish I could do as well with my preaching.”
Along the way, however, it is good to know that even though I often fall short of my own expectations, all is not lost. I still have value and meaning and purpose in this life.
“I can live in the confidence that I am not quite forlorn.”