Being alone is one thing; finding purpose in solitude of the soul, is everything

Being alone, is one thing. Finding purpose in those inevitable moments of solitude of the soul, is another. 

Finding how best to live that purpose, once revealed, can seem impossible.

Yet that is, I suspect, a universal, and most particularly intense American experience. 

We are so material in our orientation, so selfish.

Asked what motivates acts of charity, of perceived "selflessness" -- our proffered tokens of time, wealth, and feelings toward another human being or cause -- and many, if honest, admit: "It makes me feel better about myself."

If that is it, then fine; who am I to judge? Been there, done that. Such benevolent actions, donations, and affection given do, at least, show another suffering human that someone or something "cares" for their plight, and perhaps even them personally.

Still, does the purpose revealed still essentially come down to a sort of self-affirmation that we are "good?" We deigned to stoop, to sacrifice a tithe of our lives and resources to someone in need, after all.

Or, maybe they are not in need, but a professional cardboard sign holder at an intersection. "Homeless, hungry, anything helps, God bless," they declare -- yet an enterprising reporter may spot them later exiting a middle class home, their rags exchanged for cleaner, newer garb as they pop into a late-model SUV for a night out.

You see it happen regularly on TV news. Confronted, there is no shame. "I've done nothing illegal. People want to give. It makes them feel better. So, I give them the chance," they say and drive off.

Certainly, there is no 100 percent effective way to know the difference between the fraud and real need. And to many, it ultimately doesn't matter. 

We want to do good, however marginal the effort may be, and welcome an easy way to do so. Roll down a window, hand a buck or two to the cardboard sign set, get a "God bless" and you can smile and feel good all the way to the next intersection.

Even if you suspect you've just been conned, it's easy to suppress that feeling. We are very good at that, we Americans.

We embrace black-and-white logical fallacies all the time, if you think about it: Trump/Pelosi are either evil or righteous, completely, with no shadows of gray; war is absolutely wrong -- but killing life in the womb is undeniably justified as the end means of a reproductive "right"; morality itself can be individually defined as we wish, and if you believe there are indeed things and actions that are inherently good or evil by nature if not whim, you are a bigot or (choose your flavor)-phobic.

And yet, down deep, there is that desire to do . . . something, something we know is right, however confused our conception of "rightness" is.

C.S. Lewis opined that the very fact that this primordial moral sense exists -- something he called "Tao" in his book, "The Abolition of Man" -- is a worthy starting point for arguing for eternal and objective Truth, natural law, and yes, Nature's God.

So, when our former "purpose," in my case a career as a writer, editor, and journalist, comes to an end, then what? 

We are, painfully and mercifully both, left to finally embrace that which we for so long avoided, that Truth we may have partially acknowledged but still held, through delusion and token practice, at arm's length.

That Truth is that our "purpose" has never really been ours; rather, we find true meaning, the kind that transcends, in seeing ourselves as part of the Purpose. Finally, we surrender to what we knew all along, deep down. . . that we were created for this, and not for that.

As atheist-turned-believer Lewis wrote: 

"An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else."

Transitions: Finding Purpose when 'Retirement" Comes Early

Nearly three months ago, I found myself thrust into retirement.

I had begun months before making preparations and inquiries about 401K rollovers, Medicare, Social Security, etc., feeling (providentially, as it turned out) compelled to get a head start on a process. I did not expect I would have to pursue for at least another year, if not longer.

Actually, I was sure I'd have another year: time to think about what retirement for a lifelong journalist, writer and editor would look like, and how to make that transition.

I was wrong. On May 14, along with 40 percent of the already dwindling staff at The Salt Lake Tribune, I was let go. Thanks, they said, for the 20 years; you did great work, but the newspaper can no longer support the staff numbers with advertising tanking, and the online model still adrift in the becalmed, profit-poor seas of the Internet.

Sixteen weeks of severance pay was nice, albeit not even a week's worth for every year I had worked to the paper. Medical insurance was yanked in two weeks -- a real blow for most of the stunned victims of the "reduction in force" not fortunate enough as me to be just a few weeks shy of their 65th birthdays, and thus Medicare eligibility.

It was nasty, but it was not personal; managers giving the bad news in some cases teared up. But for all of us, it was what it was. And it hurt, perhaps in a weird way, more so since it was so abrupt, and in many ways nonsensical in choices made about what beats (and people) stayed, and which/who remained.

Still, I imagine many of my fellow sacrificial lambs on the altar of failed newspaper economics would happily trade their current anxieties -- income about to run out by now, lack of medical coverage, lack of prospects in a disappearing industry -- for mere malaise over such nebulous matters as "purpose."

But that's my cross to bear, as it were.

When your work was your purpose, when exploring and exploring, mulling and reporting on Life and Faith and Trauma and Love and Setbacks and Triumphs defined your raison d'être, the world -- or your tiny piece of it -- made sense.

Now, I find that was illusion. Oh, it was an amazing ride -- exhilarating, maddening, challenging, frustrating, fulfilling, revealing glimpses of ultimate Truth, between epiphanies of the limits of mortal intellect.

But, Purpose? No, it never was. Actually, I now believe, it was something of an escape and counterfeit for Purpose, speaking in the ultimate sense -- it filled up my thoughts, desires, goals, emotions and self-image, allowing me to put off the Big Questions.

These are the times that test your faith, whatever form that takes. And that faith had better be real, grounded and strong once roused from the dormancy our busy lives impose on it. If it is not, you stare into the Abyss, and it looks back at you, whispering, "What have you really done with your life?"

Better to be able to find not the darkness and realization that a lifetime has all but passed on its march to loss of meaning, but to fall to your knees and see the Face of God.

That visage shines in a nighttime of stars, the waves of horizonless oceans, the way the wind caresses the fields of grass, the leaves and branches of trees, and brushes the banks of rivers and lakes with waves that ripple in light.

That face is of wisdom and love that defies our poor concept of Infinity, yet twinkles in the eyes of a child, the tears of those who mourn, the first breath of an infant, the last gasp of the dying.

All those things, yes. And for me, Eternity descends like a cloud of uncreated light and mercy during the ancient prayers of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, and Love takes residence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

There is Purpose. But how to understand it? And now, at this stage of life, how does this Purpose become my life?

This road -- not a new one but largely, I confess a poorly explored one -- stretches before me, as the prayer says, "both now and forever, and unto the ages of ages."

That now has become my primary purpose. My secondary purpose? That would be how to express creativity and curiosity and to somehow use my acquired skills of a lifetime to still educate and encourage.

And that is what remains a work in progress.