Our Wild And Precious Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? (Mary Oliver)

“FInd out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose.” (Dolly Parton)

Many of you are probably familiar with the great poet, Mary Oliver. This final line from her poem, The Summer Day, is one that is often quoted as an urging for us to reflect more deeply on our purpose on this earth and how we want to spend our time here.

And we’re probably all familiar with Dolly Parton who just died last week. She’s being remembered for so much more than just her music, and part of what made her so iconic and influential is that she lived her life with purpose.

Having had a change of jobs in the past year, themes of purpose and how I want to spend my time have been on my mind a lot. Leaving one job and coming to another encouraged me to ask some questions of myself. Many life events might prompt this kind of reflection for us – job change, illness, life transition.

In our first reading today from 1 Corinthians 2, Paul admits that when he came to Corinth he did not come with some “sublimity of words or wisdom” but instead brought a “demonstration of spirit and power.” This became his “message and proclamation.”

In other words, he did not tell them what his mission was. He showed them. He had already done some of the inner work, knew what he was there to do and then set about to do it.

In the gospel from Luke 4, we have what is often called “Jesus’ mission statement” where he arrives in his hometown and reads from the scroll of Isaiah 61 in the synagogue and says the famous lines, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

He puts down the scroll, and the crowd is on the edge of their seats because they feel something happening in this proclamation. Like Paul, he was not merely bringing wisdom. He was bringing spirit and power when he spoke because he knew what he was there for and what was his to do. And while he was borrowing the words from Isaiah, he was clear when he said to his audience, “this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

There’s a lot more to the story, but I am going to pause there.

Do you have a purpose for your life that you have recognized? Do you have a mission statement that summarizes who you are and what you want to be about?

While this is hardly necessary for living a meaningful life, it is an interesting question to ponder. How would you describe your purpose or mission?

In her beautiful book, Soul Medicine for a Fractured World, author Lisa Rankow says that “as we face increasingly widespread devastation, human awakening to our individual and collective purpose is an urgent matter for the survival of life on Earth.” She says that these times of crisis “call to our soul’s intent, the reason we are alive now.”

She goes on to say that our “purpose is not the same as goals or outcomes.” We see this in Jesus’ words. His mission to bring glad tidings, liberation and freedom from oppression is not a simple goal or “measurable outcome.” This kind of work does not end, per se. It keeps emerging and growing, and his purpose even becomes something that his followers take up as their own shared purpose as well.

Some of you may have done a personal mission statement at some point. I know that I did one years ago (but the fact that I can’t find it probably suggests that its lasting impact was limited). A personal mission statement is akin to naming one’s purpose in life, and I might recommend it as a spiritual tool/exercise to more deeply name your values, the impact that you want to have and your strengths in going about this mission. One tool to help you do that is here.

Lisa Rankow’s chapter on “Purpose” in the book I mentioned above is very compelling (and you can read that chapter here). In it she cites the great Dr. Howard Thurman who utilized three central questions to help people with this idea of purpose: “Who are you…really? What do you want? How will you get it?”

Just sit with those questions for a minute. What do they bring up in you? Do they feel revealing? Scary? Overwhelming? Clarifying?

Of course questions of purpose are not meant to be answered in isolation or as an individual project. We come to know ourselves through our relationships, and so it only stands to reason that some of the purpose/mission work can only be done in relationship with others.

But even if others help us with the purpose and mission work, a lot of the heavy lifting is ours to do. Prior to Jesus arriving at his home synagogue and reading from the scroll, he’d been in the desert for 40 days facing temptation and doing some of the inner work that is required. If you’re familiar with AA, they might call some of this work the “fearless and searching moral inventory.” His inner work helped to clarify things for him and this was rooted in his deep relationship with God.

The great Quaker educator, Parker Palmer, wrote a wonderful book called Let Your Life Speak which has been a valuable resource for me (and many others) along the way as I have done some of this purpose/mission work. In it he reminds us that purpose (or vocation as he calls it) is not even something we “search for,” per se. He says that it is searching for us! Palmer says, “Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling the who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live — but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

Jesus did that kind of listening.

So if you want a place to start with respect to some of today’s themes, Lisa Rankow takes us back to Howard Thurman. He offers some beginning questions that might help guide us into this discovery. Thurman asks:

What are your spiritual gifts and capacities?
What can you see from the vantage point of your experiences and social context?

What are your core values?
What is urging in your heart for how to express and serve and make a difference?

Rankow insists that our purpose and mission – individually and collectively – is an emergent process- meaning that it keeps growing and changing. I think about so many people who go through intense (and often painful experiences) and then take on a new purpose in the world. I think about the mothers who lost children to drunk drivers who founded MADD, people who became anti-violence advocates after mass shootings or people who take up specific causes after surviving cancer or some other illness.

One of Rankow’s central points in her chapter is that “we are always practicing something, every moment of our lives. It’s worthwhile to notice [and be intentional about] what we are practicing.”

Which brings us full circle to Mary Oliver’s line, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Maybe we can all take some time this week to reflect more deeply on what we think and feel we are here for. Maybe spend some time working with Thurman’s questions (above) and then share these with one or two trusted others who might offer you reflections. But no matter what you take up, please know that you do have a mission and purpose and that you matter.