Neil deGrasse Tyson is reported to have said that “the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” No doubt true, but how about the inverse: are we under any obligation to make sense out of the universe? Suppose we soften and narrow the conversation a bit and simply ask: are we under any motivation to make sense of our life? to find meaning in this short stretch of time between our first and our last breath?

Two social trends of our time are continually in the news. One is the fact that an increasingly smaller number of people say that they are religious or even spiritual. When one reads about the negative experiences that so many have had while belonging to a church, it becomes perfectly clear why they left. But there are also many others, perhaps the majority, who simply could not care less about God or spirituality. One person interviewed said simply “it is enough to be alive”. This focus on the now, the moment, the immediacy at hand, manifests itself also in the attitude toward work, saving for the future, thoughts about career and retirement, and so on. People want to live today, not plan to live sometime in the future, either in retirement or in heaven. But, and a big but it is, is it possible to stop short the search for meaning in life, or, more accurately, the search for a meaningful life, or is that question the essence of what it means to be human? 

The second trend of our time is a growing awareness that we are lonely people. We may be busy, with lots to do between work, family, and recreation, but do we incorporate a sense of happiness and wholeness into our time from bed in the morning to bed at night? I have been watching a BBC broadcast of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and in the story the question most often put to a person is: have you found happiness? The answer offered by Tolstoy is that happiness is found not in glory, nor in power, nor riches, but in doing good for others, offering forgiveness to one another, no matter how serious the offence, and sharing love with another, in the case of one prisoner of war, that “other” being his dog.

It is ultimately meaningless if we are religious people or not. The real question is whether we reach out to do good for one another, whether we forgive one another, and then discover the possibility that we can love one another. We can and must live in the now, but the only way the present moment can be fulfilling is if it reaches out of the prison of isolation into the freedom of communion with people and with nature. In so doing, we find ourself no longer lonely.

Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith,   The Void and the Vision and  The New Matrix: How the World We Live In Impacts Our Thinking About Self and God. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT.