Search for Meaning

I am grateful for continuing opportunities that come my way---usually because of some friends of mine.  Perhaps that is one of the ways grace works in our ordinary worlds.  One such opportunity for me was to participate in Grand Rounds at the Cleveland Clinic.  Grand Rounds is part of medical education---often seen as an important part of the residency program for doctors-to-be.   My daughter is a physician, so I know she has participated in this experience.  I must admit, I never thought I would. 

However, the Cleveland Clinic was hosting a renowned Yale epidemiologist and was told he would be talking about the pandemic, which we all have suffered since Spring, 2020.  An epidemiologist is someone who studies the event, distribution and potential solution to various diseases.  As a discipline, it is especially concerned with public health issues.  I was intrigued and jumped at the chance.

At first, the presenter put our most recent bout with the virus into historical perspective.  Our current one is SARS II, which did remind me the first SARS happened in 2003.  He reminded me of MER, the Middle Eastern respiratory disease that was not too much of a factor in this country.  Many of us have heard of the 1918 major outbreak.  Again, the presenter reminded us that this problem has been around forever.  The Bible mentions plagues; it is all over Greek literature and elsewhere.  Of course, that probably does not make us any less concerned, but it should tell us this is not unique.  

The presenter is a bright, articulate guy, as you might expect.  For example, scientists know the virus will continue to evolve.  Different strains of us may make our vaccines less effective.  I loved his phrase describing this.  He said, “the pandemic virus explores the Darwinian fitness landscape.”  My translation of this is, “Watch out, the little bugger may morph and attack us again!”  

As interesting as many other points were, I don’t want to linger on the scientific aspect.  Clearly, that is not my strong suit.  Rather I want to share some of his analysis that struck me as spiritual---or, at least, implicates spirituality.  He suggested the plague has both challenges and opportunities.  That is not always seen by us, because we see the challenges and potential threats and they preoccupy us.  Of course, if we got sick or someone we love died because of Covid, then we have every right to feel grief and complain.  

I would rather focus on some of the opportunities that he flagged, and I have thought about.  One significant thing I already knew—and you probably do too---is humans “teach and learn” from each other during these times.  Think about how we rightly made heroes out of the health care workers.  They became models of compassion.  I still have the image of some doctors and nurses putting on their medical armor, as it were, to fight the virus.  They willingly exposed themselves to danger.  They became paradigms of self-sacrificial action.

I would argue that every action of compassion is spiritual.  It does not have to come with any doctrine or dogmatic explanation.  Jesus was loving to all comers.  The Buddha taught compassion.  It is spiritual at its core.  I am touched just thinking about it.  But I also realize the learning that can come from this is the challenge for me and all of us to learn to be compassionate in our ordinary worlds.  

When I think about the chaos, violence and unhappiness in our world today, there surely is deep need for people of compassion to be in action.  Most of us will do it in little ways.  It will be how we treat the store clerk, the bagger at the grocery store and so forth.  In most cases we don’t really know the price they may have paid during the pandemic.  

Another important opportunity the presenter suggested has to do with making meaning.  He postulated that “the pandemic plagues often provoke a search for meaning.”  I would agree that life during a pandemic drives all of us a bit deeper.  It forces ultimate questions into our lives.  The virus makes us feel vulnerable and sometimes helpless.  We wonder if the world is out of control or if there is some deeper level where things are in control, but we don’t know the reason for all of this.  

There are predictable results in times like this.  People save more money and others discover God.  I would argue the search for meaning is by definition a spiritual search.  It may or may not involve “finding God,” but I always link deep meaning with a “Power bigger than me,” as it is often called.  Deeper or ultimate meaning is always self-transcendent.  We know we are not ultimate---at least in this form.  This form is who feels vulnerable and can get Covid and die.  

Finding meaning is finding some purpose and point that is bigger than me and explains both my life and my death.  I understand why this search for meaning is taken more seriously now.  And I understand this as an opportunity.  The challenge now is for people like me to teach and learn in order to help folks in their search for meaning.  Join me….