making meaning

“Some people esteem one day as better than another, 

while others esteem all days alike. 

Let all be fully convinced in their own mind.” ~ Romans 14:5

Our experience of life is what we make of it. If we live our days expecting goodness in them, then that is what we will find. Even when the days are not filled with only joyous experiences, our attitude of positive expectation will lead us to see richness and beauty in even the bleakest of circumstances. In the same way, if we expect and look for the “bad”, if we fear that life is made up of negative experiences, then we risk experiencing even positive things in a negative light. 

My husband’s frequent expression lately is “it is what it is.” I think, instead, it is what we make of it. So I choose not to live each day looking for “good” and “bad” in it, for that creates a false dichotomy. No thing is all good or all bad, and to judge (yes, that is what we are doing, judging) something as “good” or “bad” effectively closes the door on looking for it to be anything other. It denies the possibility of finding something positive within the painful. 

I do not subscribe to the theology behind the saying “everything happens for a reason.” A theology that would prescribe the events of my days as if they were preordained and ordered for me whether or not I choose them. I do, however, firmly believe we can (and should) make meaning out of the experiences of life. We are called to look for the learning, the connectedness, the holy within the moments of life, and when we do so, we make meaning from them. That is a significant part of the journey we are on, touching the holy within everything we do. Integrating heart and mind and body and soul, that is how we fully live.