Stephanie and Somebody

Recently we watched the movie "Proof," which is about the daughter of a famous mathematician who does math and falls in love, each with extreme dysfunction. The father, who is certifiably crazy, pushes his daughter to stop being lazy and work on her math. He asks her how many days she has lost. By this he means, how far behind have you now fallen since you last worked on a proof?

This pretty accurately describes how I feel.

It's strange having a deeply ingrained belief that you were meant to do something important with your life. I see how this could be helpful, but at the same time I can tell you that it can be a hindrance. The problem is that if you are supposed to do something important, then you can't waste time with lesser endeavors. But since there's really no way to tell exactly what it is that you are supposed to do, you end up doing nothing--not even the lesser endeavors. If you don't know beforehand the path you are to take, then any path might be the wrong one.

I know I've written something exactly like this before, but since I don't remember where and can't find it, I am writing it again. Actually, this is a constant problem, so maybe that's why it seems so familiar.

The problem is that all the days you're not consciously working toward your calling are those lost days that add up for crazy dads to use in tormenting you. And the fear of lost days keeps you from picking a direction and running, which means you don't get anywhere until you find a burning bush. So far I have not--well, at least not one that talks to me, though I continue to set them ablaze in the hope that I may induce the experience.

As freedoms go, feeling like you could do anything can be the most debilitating.

My real quest is for meaning. I want my life to mean something, for me to mean something. I want to have substance and to be grounded; I want my life to matter. This is why I read Ecclesiastes, because apparently everything is meaningless. Here's a nice passage from the end of chapter six:

"Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there's no use arguing with God about your destiny."

Okay, so this is great news for me. I don't need to be the one to choose my destiny. I just need to let God decide it--or better yet, realize that I am on a course that is already marked out for me and I can just put on the autopilot and not worry anymore. There is comfort in knowing that I am hemmed in. After all, a hug can be constricting, but who doesn't want to be hugged?

"The more words you speak, the less they mean. So why overdo it?"

For someone who feels gifted to teach, write, and speak, this is not as encouraging. I don't think I'll be putting this quote above my computer to help with writer's block.

"In the few days of our empty lives, who knows how our days can best be spent? And who can tell what will happen in the future after we are gone?"

The whole "empty lives" part notwithstanding, I do actually like this verse very much. Part of standing here numb and motionless, transfixed by some vauge notions of meaning and significance, is a constant weighing of options. Which one will be the better option? Which is the faster track to meaning and finding my calling? Part of the curse of being educated is that you come to belive that knowledge matters, and that there is a solution to every problem, if only you have the ability and determination to find it. So I am Foghorn Leghorn's little nephew, who can do nothing before he sits down to sketch out trajectories and determine beforehand the best path to success.

The problem is that this doen't work at all. If you were paying attention in chapter one, you will have noticed this little gem: "To increase knowledge only increases sorrow." I don't remember that one being carved into the facade of any building on my college campus. If I had known about it earlier, I could have spun flunking out as some noble kind of prophetic dissent.

There is no calculation for determining significance. There is no way to guarantee that I will find it--that one most important thing I could possibly do with my life. But the risk of missing it is certainly aided by my inactivity--those days I've lost.

"Life's too short," you know, to dance with ugly dudes or date fat chicks or whatever those key chains say. Death is the great obstacle to meaning, says the teacher. Everything is meaningless because everyone dies--the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the oppressed.

In the back of my mind there's a steady, irreversible tick-tock reminding me that all at once my failure will spring upon me and then settle in forever. I think this might be part of the fear of death that the preacher speaks about in Hebrews 2. It's the voice of the Slanderer touting his trump card, from whom the dying Jesus wills to deliver us.

The teacher in Ecclesiastes shows us the meaninglessness of a life that ends in death, then Jesus comes to show us another way. Those who want to save their life will lose it, he affirms. But what about those who don't live a frenzied life in fear of death? Only the cruciform life, which begins at the cross and bursts out of the tomb, can escape from a world that by all accounts--from religious to scientific--is headed toward death.

If I lose my life for his sake, I will find it. If I die first, and not finally, then the possibility of finding meaning remains.