Living Life With A View From The End

This past weekend, my students and I congregated with other students from across Ontario to discuss what it means to live life with a view from the end. Our speaker, Eric Stolte, presented a challenging series of talks that deeply engaged many of us. Here are some of my thoughts from that weekend:

Eric spoke about the temples that we build in our lives: value/worth; performance; security; etc. He suggested that when we worship these things, we lose joy, peace, contentment, and more. I strongly agree with this.

3 years ago, I went through my own struggle with value, worth, and security through performance (arguably, I still endure this struggle today, but this was a particularly dark time of struggle). After I failed to gain acceptance in any of the English doctorate programs to which I had applied, I found my entire world swept out from underneath me. During my time as a graduate student, I defined myself by my academic performance, and by my skill as a teacher and scholar. The academic world had become my altar, so to speak, and my entire life revolved around it.

When I failed to continue in that career, I was forced with a huge worldview change. Everything that I used to define myself was taken away, and I was forced to deal with the impending question of "Who am I now?" As a result, I faced much loss of joy, contentment, and certainly peace.

Eventually, I rediscovered my peace through faithful prayer, loving support from others, and a new career as a university campus chaplain. I rediscovered my worth in God's eyes; a worth that surpasses any worldly measure of value and worth; and a worth that knows no bounds.

I like to think that this was my rich young man moment. In Matt. 19: 16-30, Jesus confronts a rich young man who wants to find the way to eternal life. Jesus responds that the young man should "go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When faced with the challenge to define his worth without anything that the world has given him, the rich young man turns around and cannot face the challenge. Not coincidentally, Jesus then goes on to describe how many people who seem "first" in this world will be "last" in the future and in heaven.

Jesus confronts the rich young man with a more authentic way of viewing his self-worth. I like to think that when I failed to continue in my academic career, God challenged me to re-define my self-worth. I had to replace my trust in the support and praise of professors and institutions, with trust in the unconditional love of God.

So far, the experience has been tremendously liberating. Perhaps Chuck Palahniuk's character of Tyler Durden did put it best when he said: "It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything."