Star-light in the World

On our earthly pilgrimage we look up at the night sky where we discover various star formations. Some stars are closer to us, some further away. Many stars seem shiny. There may be one, in particular. It is at this time of pondering that we may decide to follow that star that seems brightest and to align our destination with its direction. Generations of people have done so. 

Following with our hearts and minds what we believe is the right path, even though less travelled, requires determination and courage. To be steadfast of the journey requires unwavering belief despite the setbacks and the obstacles on our path. It requires a sense of mission.

How do we prepare ourselves for a mission? --With acute vision. This vision aims to discern what is worthy and what is valuable to strive for and starts out from the examination of our resources that will help us to forge beyond ourselves, outside and ahead. 

It is these inner resources that we may decide to take a closer look at, while we ponder the marvel of the guiding-light:

Some parts of us are visible and some are not. Our hands and feet, the colour of our eyes and hair are visible. Our breathing can be felt, your heart beat can be palpated. But, the most important part is not visible. --Do you recall that quote by Anthoine de Saint-Exupery “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Our bodies can be seen. Most parts of it, at least, with the eye or with a good microscope. It is made up of many cells. Thousands of living organisms that form systems and make up organs, and our bodies that, at the end, when everything works as it was designed to be, work beautifully. It processes the nutrients we ingest, it nurtures those tiny cells so they can stay healthy and reproduce. It eliminates the harmful substances so that the body as a whole can prosper. The body is a very complex and very elaborate system and we do not even understand everything about how complex its functions are and how intricate balance it needs to have to operate well.

We also do not understand fully how it is that the body can repair itself, how it can heal so remarkably, and that to us can also seem like a miracle. An everyday wonder, if one looks at it, how after a fracture, new cells grow, how after good nights’ sleep one can jump out of bed and start a new day. It is a miracle to be alive! If one thinks of it.

The world of our thoughts is quite complex. Our feelings, emotions and musings make up the mind and the psychological capacities that we have. They are necessary for being aware of our surroundings, making connections, learning, forming memories and having insight. There is a colourful cosmos inside, with some thoughts and feelings that we are aware of, and these conscious, and some that we are not aware of, because they are unconscious. Thoughts and feelings make us be able to perceive and react to our environment, to anticipate the consequences of our actions, and become aware of our options. Rational thinking is what helps us string thoughts together so that we are able to understand even abstract ideas. Deep feelings tell us if we seem to be doing well in meeting our needs and goals, or we do not.

There is a third part, the most important one, that is neither on the “outside” and neither on the “inside,” because it is not a physical component. It is the very basis of our being. It is also called the core or the essence of our being; our spirit. Our spirit is the foundation of our being since its beginning, but it lays dormant as a potential. While we are developing, our body and mind gain capacities that will be the instruments of the spirit. It is through our body and mind that our spirit can come to expression.

The spirit is that part which is invisible, untouchable and indestructible. It is a different dimension than our bodies and minds. It is beyond the physical dimension. It is in a meta-physical domain. This means that it is a qualitatively different from our bodies and minds. It is not a substance, but it is a dynamics.

Spirit comes from Spirit. It is indestructible, indivisible, unique and irrepeatable. A new creation that longs for the home of the Spirit, our home, our eternal destination. It is joined to the cells while we live on earth, to be drawn toward the Eternal Spirit at the moment of death. Creation naturally roots for its Creator.

God created everything out of love. He breathed Spirit into lifeless matter and fashioned us according to Divine plans. In the order of creation, humans were given the neural capacity for free will, so that they can choose to relate and to love back. Whatever our choice may be about how to relate to ourselves, to others, to the world and to the Transcendent, God loved us first. We were gifted with existence because we are wanted and expected. We are intended for something. We are created for something. Our spirit is that part that is whole and healthy, that points us in the direction of understanding our purpose and our mission in the world. It is through our spirit that the “voice of God” can reach us and sound through, if we make ourselves available.

Our spirit is indestructible to the forces of this world. Our body and mind can be damaged, but our spirit can not be touched. An illness can make it impossible for the spirit to express itself through our body and mind for some time, and maybe forever as long as we are alive, but that does not mean that our spirit is “not with us.” The spirit is still yearning for meaning, the more so for a higher meaning, an all encompassing and Ultimate Meaning. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a theologian said that “everything that rises must converge.” God is the source of all meaningful purpose where the soul finds rest.

The nature of our spirit in everyday living is to reach beyond the concrete, the immediate, the self, toward ideas, ideals, and the world of values. It is the seat of our conscience. This is our inner voice that helps us to discern which value stands closest in proximity to our unique situation, which beckons us in any concrete moment. That value, when it is actualized, is the meaning of the moment. Conscience helps to intuit what is true, beautiful and good that we can strive for. If we are in tuned with it, we can use its guidance to discern which impulses are consistent with values that are self-transcendent. Self-transcendent means they are values that are good for us and good for other people and they are in harmony with the laws of the Universe.

Our spirit is an inner reservoir of strength. Its resources include creativity, love, sense of humour, capacity for choice, commitment to tasks, ideas, ideals, imagination. awareness, self-distancing, self-transcendence, self-development, compassion, forgiveness, awareness of time, awareness of finiteness, fallibility and mortality. It is the seat of conscience, a "psycho-spiritual joint." It has the capacity for receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, humility and reverence. It has a capacity for mercy, kindness, forgiveness and gratitude. These gifts can help us to shape ourselves into virtuous persons practising the cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. Spirit reaches beyond the dimensions of time and space. It allows us to reach out and to be with in spirit. 

The laws of nature emphasize the survival of the fittest. The best, the strongest beats the weak. These laws lead to battles and fights.  Through the spirit we are called to be attuned to a domain permeating all of Creation and to be gentleness, kindness, gratitude, forgiveness, faith, hope, love, charity, and acts of mercy in the world. These are some of those paths that lead to joy and heal the scars and wounds. They lift the lonely and the oppressed. Pay attention to the fate of the orphan and the marginalised. Help them feel included, respected and cared for. Help them feel appreciated and loved.

There are several other paths, too, but those are shortcuts. They want to mimic happiness, and promise a state of joy, but are deceptive. They last for a while and then they dissipate, leaving a feeling of disappointment and emptiness. They do not fill the deep longings of any person, they only provide a temporary satisfaction, followed by a painful awareness of their lack of potency to achieve lasting effects. They ensnare and trap a person making them a slave of desires for power, success or happiness. The hardest battles are therefore, fought within us, against the temptations to choose these mediocre paths.

In spirit we have the capacity to look at ourselves and to observe ourselves from different perspectives. From these vantage points we can evaluate if we are on the path that corresponds with what was meant for us, with the law of the Creator, or we have fallen short somehow by seeking our self-gratification to the expense of neglecting our real duties or the welfare of others. In spirit we have the ability to respond to the Divine Spirit and seek help when we need spiritual strength to jump over physical or psychological barriers.

Looking at ourselves from the outside, which is an ability of our spirit, that we call self-distancing, we are able to become aware of ourselves. How is our body feeling, what emotions accompany our present state? Than, we can discover some things about ourselves: We can realise that we are one and only in a particular situation at any particular time and any moment and awaited to give an answer that is not addressed at that moment in the same way to anyone else. In other words, that we alone fashion our response, our way. And in this small instance, of which every moment is made out of, we have an area of freedom how we respond. The response is our choice from among all the possibilities that are available to us. Where we have freedom, we have responsibility as well to honestly do our best and to fulfill what was we can discern to the best of our ability that is expected from us, by the source of all Life.

Self-transcendence is the capacity to reach beyond our immediate situation to goals and tasks that can be meaningful, to reach toward other people, and toward the strength that we receive from the Creator for the tasks ahead. So, we can see, in spirit we can reach to a task, to the world, to others, and to God.

Spirituality is the dynamics of being aware that we are part of a whole and a greater reality than our immediate surroundings. Reaching out to a Higher Power for help and support and relying on this strength to walk on our path with courage means building and nurturing an ongoing spiritual bond.  

People express and practice their spirituality in various ways. Religious denominations have a set of codes and rites through which religious beliefs, based on deep seated spirituality, are revered and transmitted. They are like different languages, through which the hopes and faith of generations in the Sacred is voiced.

When we discover something that is of transcendental nature in our existence, we appreciate that wherever we go, we are not alone.  We go with the strength of a Higher Power from whom we came, and who is accompanying us. We are in the whole entity of the Creator’s plan for something noble and something good and higher than what was in the world before. Then we can understand that while our body and mind may be fragile, weak and vulnerable, our inner resources in the spirit are manifold. We can embrace our condition with compassion.

Life calls us, and we answer. We are present to the moment when we see that area of freedom in which we have choices to make. The external question is met with an internal search to find the right answer: “What can I do?” “What can I take from this situation?”  “How can I best respond?” being present to life is moment to moment, one day at a time.

Viktor Frankl, who was an Austrian psychiatrist, survivor of the holocaust, and the founder of the school of psychotherapy aimed at helping people find meaning (Logo-therapy), said that there are three value domains where one can start to search for a meaningful answer in any concrete situation. These are the creative, experiential and attitudinal values that one can aim to actualise. The creative values refer to making something new, bringing into the world something that did not exist before. We do this mostly through work. The experiential values refer to what we take from the world from what was given to us to enrich us, such as a beautiful sunset, a wonderful melody, the company of loved ones. The attitudinal values mean that even in the face of suffering our spirit retains that space where we are free to choose our best answer and when we are not able to control the situation, or change the outcome, and only then, we are still able to choose our response to it. We can, in such unalterable situations, still choose to change ourselves for the better. This is the greatest human achievement, to face suffering with courage and to bring something meaningful out of a meaningless situation by how we respond to that what does not make sense, or what defies reason, and what shakes our entire existence.

To rise from the ashes, to create a changed heart, a metanoia, a transformation that forever links one’s destiny with a faith and acceptance of the will of God is the highest human accomplishment. Frankl recorded how this was demonstrated by very courageous people during the Second World War who were imprisoned in concentration camps. They were praying when they were being led to be executed and still praised God. One can read more about account in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Similar examples can be seen in the life of inspirational persons who did not give up when they were persecuted and mistreated or in the lives of saints.

Suffering in life is real. It can be three-fold, stated Frankl in the same book. It can present itself in the form of pain, guilt and death.  Pain can be physical pain, emotional pain, or the pain of not finding a meaningful reason to live for. Being alienated from one’s spirit and core self, is a pain that only human beings can feel, because only they are aware of the need to find meaning that goes beyond doing what they are commanded by instincts or told other people to do. Guilt can be a guilt of doing something that was wrong, because it harmed oneself or others, or was against the universal human values. Or, it can be a guilt because of failing to do something would have been the right thing to do. The awareness of time passing, finiteness, vulnerability and death is also a uniquely human challenge.

What is not passing and eternal? It is all the things that we collect into the “granary of our lives” everything that we have done well, everything that was meaningful. This belongs to our core: the values that we actualised, the truth, beauty and goodness that we contributed to the world. The good fruits that we brought to the harvest, the good that we gave to others for the love of the source of all love--our Creator.

Thus, Frankl stated that the intelligent human being lives along the dimensions of failure and success. If we consider ourselves with the eyes of the world, we may have been able to become acclaimed, or successful at a task or we have haven’t and failed. But, there is another axis. The axis of the “suffering human being,” that Frankl said we can imagine crossing diagonally opposite to this continuum between success and failure. This continuum spans between meaning and despair.

The axes of the intelligent human being and the suffering human being when diagonally intersect, gives us four “quadrants” so to speak. Four scenarios: People can be successful and accomplish something meaningful; people can be successful but inside still feel an inner void and emptiness because their success was lacking a sense of meaningfulness; people who did not succeed at a task and despair; or people who did not succeed but they do not despair because in the greater dimension of things, they trust in the meaningfulness of the whole, in which their “failure” or sacrifice, can still have some meaning. Meaning is therefore that dimension that saves from despair in the face of suffering. If we have to suffer but we see meaning, we can endure that suffering better than if we see no meaning in it. Seeing no meaning makes people suffer and makes them prone to despair.

Let us consider this with point with yet another coordinate system. We can imagine a spectrum ranging between existential frustration and existential fulfillment. And, another one, diagonal to the first one, that spans between thwarted development and growth. Meaning orientation, like an arrow straight through the middle, where these two spectrums intersect, lifts a frustrated, and stagnating person toward the possibility of existential fulfillment and growth. This is the author’s own diagram.

What doe this mean concretely? What it means is that if we face the triad of suffering (pain, guilt and death) with the value triad (creative, experiential and attitudinal values) and discover our areas of freedom and responsibility, ability to respond, choices, uniqueness, and capacity for self-distancing and self-transcendence, then we are able to respond to suffering is a meaningful way and we can bring about growth and development in a way that is meaningful and life-giving. This is a fundamental aim of meaning-centered therapy.

Following these models through imagination, one can picture: one coordinate system with another one creating a base for two triangles, one inverted and the other not, juxtaposed onto each other, with several little peaks around that represent the resources that can be kindled. The end result will look like star-formation. Each of our stars will be unique, as our lives are unique. 

The star represents our ability to (1) turn suffering into a human achievement; (2) derive from guilt the opportunity to change ourselves for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness the incentive to take responsible action. This is the basic thrust of Frankl’s logotherapy.

Remember the spark in the metaphor. Like any spark, it has to be carefully nurtured to help it to glow into a flame that can bring light to the world through good actions and good example for others to benefit from and to follow.  

What are your strengths? What are your talents? What are the gift that you have received? How could you help one person today? What are you grateful for? A kind word, a smile, a helping hand, a gesture of well wishing and aid go a long way. Given freely, out of one’s own richness. A richness that was granted to us even before our conscious awareness began. It can be ours if we ask for it if we transcend ourselves toward it, if we ‘empty ourselves” so it can fill our being. We can be the hand that passes it on, the legs that carry it to others, the eyes that discovers the potential in the other.

Our world is in a dire need of individuals with strength and courage. We need faith in the Providence that the spark entrusted to each of us is worth attending to and worth presenting to the world.

Hope is kept alive through the lives of those who understand that we give from what we have been given, and what we have been given comes from an eternal source.

When we give kindness, mercy and goodness to others is when we honour and love our God and love our neighbour in a way that enriches us.

May a time of preparation and reflection bring fruitful awareness of the resources that can be kindled and nurtured to reveal the joy of bringing our unique light to the world.

The guiding-light can be born in our hearts and transform our being so that we can be light for our surroundings, inside-out.

Bibliography:

Frankl, V. E. (2014). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.

Marshall M., & Marshall E. (2012). Logotherapy Revisited. Ottawa: Ottawa Institute of Logotherapy.

Saint-Exupery, A. (1943). The Little Prince. Trans. Katherine Woods. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.

Teilhard De Chardin, P. (1969). Building the Earth and the Psychological Conditions of Human Unification. Avon.