Belonging

I find it amazing how we are all very individual and unique, yet at the same time we’re all the same. All of humanity searches for answers to the bigger questions of life. Questions with answers that oftentimes seem beyond our reach.

We also have the same needs and inner longings. One of them being the need to belong. Not just the need to belong to a community, or to be a part of something; but a need to belong to someone/thing. We ask, “Who am I?” and rarely, “Whose am I?”

I love this quote by St. Augustine:

• “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

A fellow blogger friend, ‘Rusty Foerger‘ posted something recently that made me think about this universal ‘sameness’. In his post he writes about a well-known Urdu poet, ‘Bulleh Shah‘, from the 16/1700s, and includes a music video by a popular Indian musician (Rabbi Shergill) that was based on his poetry.

Please take a moment to read the post, “I know not who I am”, from “Curriculum of the Spiritual Life”, and watch the following music video.

Humanity’s Search

 

 

Wandering
Wandering
Lost and alone
Wondering

Searching
Seeking
Seems I’m missing
Something

Ideas
Opinions
Puzzle pieces
Lacking

A void
A vacuum
Questions and doubts
Unanswered

Empty
Hollow
Do I blindly
Follow

A cry
A plead
For life’s meaning
Value

Are you a human being? Yes? Well then, I’m sure you’ve grappled with at least some of what you’ve just read. I know I have. Humans are the only beings on Earth that have the ability to reason and think, and so it comes as no surprise that we question life and death, and all that it entails.

According to the philosopher and theologian St. Augustine, man is prone to a curious feeling of dissatisfaction and to a subtle sense of longing for something undefined. This feeling of dissatisfaction arises from his fallen condition: although he has an innate potential to relate to God or the absolute, this potential can never be fully realized, and so he yearns for other things to fill its place. Yet these other things do not satisfy, and he is left with an insatiable feeling of longing—longing for something that cannot be defined (1).

I remember when I was a child, first thinking of death.  Man, it frightened the bejiggers out of me.  I couldn’t grasp the concept of not existing anymore.  How could I just live life and then “poof” one day be gone? No more.  Wiped out of existence.  It frightened me so much that I just willed myself to not think of it.  Every so often though, it would come up in my thoughts again.  This first happened when I was a child.  Arriving at adulthood I started to question more.  I think we all do.  Where did I come from? Where am I really going when I die? Why am I frightened of death? What is the purpose of life? These types of things. You know, the light and fluffy stuff.

Phew! Ok, enough of ‘being heavy’.  I’ve come to terms with all of this stuff in my life.  I don’t consider myself to be wandering and wondering anymore, lost and alone, empty and hollow, crying out for meaning.  I no longer sense a void or vacuum, and I believe that my life has value.  However, I know that there are so many out there that are still living in the reality of this poem.

How about you? Does this poem cause you to think about the questions of life? Have you ever felt the way described here?  Just a little food for thought for this Wednesday afternoon.

(1) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201208/the-seven-things-only-human-beings-can-do

Photo by: http://www.glitter-graphics.com/users/rocker_chick_7