Consider this/ Einfach zum Nachdenken

Do you know what the bestselling book was worldwide in 2004 and 2005? Harry Potter? The Da Vinci Code? Jamie Oliver’s “The Naked Chef”? Wrong! It was a book by an American pastor called “The Purpose-Driven Life”. In it the author invites the reader to devote 40 days of his life to consider what the purpose of his life is. Starting with a Bible passage, every day considers what the important things are in a human being’s life- and to date about 22 million people have bought it.

Gustav Mahler’s 1^st symphony begins with some deep D-notes, often referred to as the “eternal music that was there before there were notes”. The listener plugs into this cosmic melody, which eventually becomes an almost paradisiacal poem. But in the background something gnaws at the listener, and the third movement vividly depicts this sentiment in the form of a funeral march. Ostensibly the sorrow is over an unreciprocated love, but really the pain goes deeper. The cycle of songs which Mahler wrote earlier and which reappear as motifs in various places in his First, offers an explanation. In one of the “Songs of a Wandering Wayfarer” the hero sings

I have a red-hot knife,

a knife in my breast.

O woe! It cuts so deeply

into every joy and delight.

This describes the deep sorrow and malaise which was going to accompany this brilliant composer all his life. Some of it can be explained by the age he lived in, the fin-de-siecle atmosphere of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Some has to do with his ethnic roots, as he says in one place: “I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.” But does that really offer sufficient explanation why such a gifted man, who achieved all that a musician could in his day, would still be so miserable, restless and misunderstood?

Back to Rick Warren: in his first chapter he states something which sets him apart from all the authors of self-help books written in recent times. “Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover your life’s meaning by looking within yourself.” Or to quote a more ancient writer: “for you have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you” (Augustine- Confessions). What both Augustine and Warren (and all of Christian tradition with them) would say is that human life, if only looked at or lived out in this world, is unhappy, restless, void of meaning. Deep inside every human being is a desire for sense, fulfillment, purpose. But that purpose will only be achieved in eternity, in communion with God himself.

You and I might not be geniuses like Mahler, but we all make the same experience: life is glorious, majestic, beautiful, but it is marred by a sadness, malaise and restlessness. The Psalms of the Bible say “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God!” (Ps 42,5) When we are restless, uneasy, wondering, it is not because something is going wrong. It is because we are made to not find satisfaction in ourselves and this world alone. So pick up the book and find out what you are made for…and listen to the last movement of the First for a fascinating denouement.

# posted by tino @ Saturday, March 10, 2007