There are some surprising perks with my work. Every now and then, out of the blue, someone will send me a book to look at, read, recommend, or use in a class. A few weeks ago a fat envelope arrived with the book The Life of Meaning:Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World.  It is a book of essays compiled by Bob Abernathy and William Bole and the contributor’s of PBS’s Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly. It is filled with the beautiful writings of current theologians, professors, clergy and others who are in constant pursuit of the spiritual. Each writer reflects in some way what a life of meaning is to them and how that has changed or stayed the same over the course of their lives. I am looking forward to sitting down and savoring each chapter.

The book is not called The Meaning of Life, but instead, is called The Life of Meaning. In some way this is the largest concept we grapple with as humans. How does my life have meaning? How does yours? What defines meaning to you? How will we know that our life had meaning, that it counted for something, that  somehow  it was faithful….whatever they may mean….that we lived with doubts and certainties with a grace and openness…..and that in it all we in some way helped to repair the world? These are the questions that bring us to define the life of meaning we long for.

As I was leafing through the chapters I thought of the Marianne Williamson poem that begins:
"Our deepest fear
    is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
    is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
    not our darkness,
        that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
    who am I to be brilliant,
    gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
We were born to make manifest
    the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
    it’s in everyone."

Today might be a perfect day to remember these words and hold them to our heart. They might just help us embrace and live into this life of meaning.