Finding Purpose

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Finding Purpose

• Charles W. Allen

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• Talking about purposes (plural) is easy. We have
  lots of them, and we can tell people what they
  are without feeling puzzled.
• Whats the purpose of this course? To help me
  get my degree.
• Talking about Purpose (singular) is trickier.
• We talk about Purpose when we start moving
  toward the big questions
• from the purpose of this course
• to the purpose of this degree
• to the purpose of this career
• to the purpose of this life
• to the purpose of life itself.
• Those last two are among the big questions Does
  your life have a purpose, a meaning? Does life
  itself have a purpose, a meaning?
• The big questions are tricky questions, because
  responsible and informed people disagree about a)
  how to answer them and b) whether they can be
  answered.

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• Here are my biases
• One bias is that everybody has a bias.
• Another is that our biases dont keep us from
  learning from one another.
• I think these big questions can be answered.
• They can be answered because we already do answer
  them, at least in practice.
• But I think the answers are more elusive than
  most of us usually realize.
• And I dont think theres any fool-proof way to
  go about answering themno fool-proof
  answer-books, no fool-proof experimental methods.
• If the answers are elusive, we cant afford to
  ignore people who answer the big questions
  differently we need to listen and learn, and we
  need to be OK with that.
• If I answer the big questions in terms of sharing
  in Gods life, and if I find the Bible to be a
  unique (though troublesome!) source of wisdom,
  thats also a way of acknowledging that I do not
  and could not have all the answers myself (that
  would be idolatry).
• So if you answer differently, I dont draw any
  automatic conclusions about you, except to assume
  that, like me, youve only begun to glimpse an
  answer, and that we both might learn more by
  finding ways to work together.
• But this is my bias, or my hunch, about the big
  questions. Its not beyond question, and thats
  why you need to know what it is.

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• Whats the purpose of your life? Whats the
  purpose of life itself?
• When people answer these questions in practice,
  two contrasting temperaments seem most
  influential the purpose driven temperament and
  the purpose seeking temperament.
• A temperament is your default or your comfort
  zone.
• You can act outside of it, but it drains you to
  do that.
• These two temperaments are extremes, ideal
  types.
• In practice, we have to stretch and twist them to
  get them to work.
• But they are recognizable, and worth recognizing.

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The Purpose Driven Temperament

• The big questions can be answered once and for
  all.
• We dont need to waste time asking about our
  purpose.
• We already know it, or at least we know how to
  know it in a few quick and easy steps.
• Maybe we can deduce it from a few self-evident
  truths (We know these truths to be
  self-evident).
• Or maybe we have a quick and easy answer bookthe
  Bible, the Quran, Das Kapital, The Wealth of
  Nations, A Course in Miracles,
• Or maybe its a bit of both self-evident truths
  plus a quick and easy answer-book.
• Instead of asking about our purpose, we need to
  name it, live by it and, above all, never
  question it.
• Recent Example (obviously!) The Purpose-Driven
  Life, by Rick Warren.
• God has not left us in the dark to wonder and
  guess. He has clearly revealed his five purposes
  for our lives through the Bible. It is our
  Owners Manual, explaining why we are alive, how
  life works, what to avoid, and what to expect in
  the future (p. 20).
• But do note that there are secular versions of
  this temperament in many companies, if you
  question the ideal of unregulated markets, dont
  expect a promotion.

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The Purpose Seeking Temperament

• The big questions cannot be answered once and for
  all.
• We need to live the questions, not the answers
  its not a waste of time.
• There are no self-evident truths.
• There are no quick and easy answer books.
• If you do answer the big questions, keep the
  answers to yourself dont let them influence how
  you treat others.
• A quotation you should know Be patient toward
  all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to
  love the questions themselves like locked rooms
  and like books that are written in a very foreign
  tongueThe point is, to live everything. Live the
  questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually,
  without noticing it, live along some distant day
  into the answerRainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a
  Young Poet, Fourth Letter.
• Recent example Yvette Flunders I dont know!
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?voXtE7zmN5MM
• Note again that this temperament has both
  religious and secular expressions.

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Strengths Weaknesses of the Purpose Driven

• Strength You have a clear identity and sense of
  direction.
• Strength If more questions arise, you know where
  to go for quick answers.
• Strength You are motivated to start righting the
  wrongs you see around you.
• Strength You know when youve done well and when
  you havent.
• Weakness You may not be able to adapt to novel
  situations.
• Weakness You may overlook obvious ambiguities in
  your quick-answer sources.
• Example from Rick Warren, slamming self-help
  books The Bible says, Self-help is no help at
  all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to
  finding your true self (Matthew 1625). But
  Warren is not quoting the Bible hes quoting a
  paraphrase based on the Bible. Matthew 1625
  actually reads For whoever wants to save his
  life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for
  me will find it (NIV). When Warren says, The
  Bible says, he is usually quoting a paraphrase
  based on the Bible, not the Bible itself. (I
  counted.) Why does he do that? Because the Bible
  really is not a quick-answer book. It doesnt
  even look like one. You have to ignore most of
  what it says, and how it says it, to make it into
  a quick-answer book.
• Weakness What if youre wrong about the wrongs
  you right? (One persons freedom-fighter is
  anothers terrorist.)
• Weakness You may confuse, Am I good at what I
  do? with, Is what I do good? Theyre very
  different questions.

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Strengths Weaknesses of the Purpose Seeking

• Strength You are open and responsive to novel
  situations.
• Strength You are free from the constraints of
  authoritarian voices.
• Strength You are motivated to work for a
  multicultural society.
• Strength You can celebrate the standards you
  live by, even if they are not shared by others.
• Weakness You may miss the fact that, no matter
  how open you are, your life is still moving in a
  particular direction. In practice, you have
  already adopted certain values to the exclusion
  of others. Theres no way around this.
• Weakness You may be discounting the collective
  wisdom that produced and preserved those
  supposedly quick-answer sources.
• Weakness You may become a pawn for preservers of
  the status quo. (The Reagan administration used
  the language of multiculturalism to avoid
  challenging Apartheid in South Africa.)
• Weakness You may not notice how the standards
  you live by may deprive others of opportunities
  to live by their own standards.

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Summing Up

• The bad news Either temperament, if followed
  strictly, can lead to disasters and atrocities.
• The good news We hardly ever follow them
  strictly, even when we think we do.
• The bad news We may never see a culture or
  society that does not produce these contrasting
  temperaments.
• The good news In the right circumstances, both
  temperaments can have a healthy influence.
• The bad news There may not be a stable middle
  ground between the two.
• The good news You can have fruitful, healthy
  interaction without finding a stable middle
  ground you can remain purpose driven and
  continue to learn from the purpose seeking, and
  vice versa.
• The bad news No matter how purpose driven you
  want to be, you will spend much of your life in
  purpose seeking no matter how purpose seeking
  you want to be, you will find that your purpose
  seeking is, in its own way, purpose driven.
• The good news What I just said.
• The upshot of all this In practice, we can
  combine a vivid sense of direction in life with
  an equally profound willingness to change course
  in light of what we are coming to see.

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Exercise 1 A Pronouncement on the Good Life
The good life for man is the life spent in
seeking for the good life for man, and the
virtues necessary for the seeking are those which
will enable us to understand what more and what
else the good life for man is. Alasdair
MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame University
of Notre Dame Press, 1981), p. 204.

• How is this statement purpose driven?
• How is this statement purpose seeking?
• What might be some of the virtues necessary for
  the seeking?
• Is one temperament more obvious than the other?
  Which?

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Exercise 2 ( Shameless Self-Promotion) A
Mission Statement
Grace Unlimited is an Indianapolis-based campus
ministry committed to celebrating Gods love on
Gods terms, unlimited by ours. Supported by
Lutherans, Episcopalians and other people of
faith and good-will, we believe that Gods love
is already at work in the lives of everyone,
moving to the Spirit of Gods common life with us
in Jesus Christ, and our mission is to help all
of us together grow in awareness and appreciation
of where God may be leading us today. Our leaders
claim common convictions, but no final answers,
to remain open to what God is doing, on Gods
terms, beyond our own Churches and Creeds. We
welcome everyone to join us in this vital quest.

• How is this statement purpose driven?
• How is this statement purpose seeking?
• Is one temperament more obvious than the other?
  Which?
• This is an unofficial mission statement about the
  campus ministry I represent.
• But I wrote it, and it is also a mission
  statement for my life (not the organization
  itself, but the purpose it serves).
• Try drafting your own mission statement,
  combining a vivid sense of direction with a
  profound willingness to change course in light of
  what you are coming to see.