Related to Relevance

Related to relevance is meaning. What is meaningful? What gives meaning and purpose to life? I remember watching the Oprah Winfree show some years ago (dare I admit that I once watched Oprah regularly). Her guest was a toy collector. He bought toys, kept them in their boxes and stored them on metal shelving units in a large air conditioned building. Row after row of toys of all kinds. Oprah asked him why and flippantly he said, "He who has the most toys wins." For him leaving behind a large collection of toys that he had never enjoyed provided meaning. What meaning, I'm not quite sure, but there it was.

The search for meaning and relevance is so strong that we can find it in even the silliest places, like toy collections. Folks do make grander attempts at meaningful lives, some with awesome success. The Pharaohs constructed monuments and preserved their bodies so that they even survive today. Remember the "lost" Pharaoh that was found in a museum on the Canadian side of Niagra Fallsa a few years ago? I saw that mummy while it was still unknown. It looked ragged and I thought, how sad for what was once a living human being to be put on display like some oddity. So much for monuments that eventually crumble and turn into dust.

The most meaningful and relevant legacy is probably a very soft product, something that will last only a lifetime. Helping another human being. Whether it is providing food for a family that would likely go hungry, digging a well in some arid land so a small community of people can have portable water, or just listening to someone who needs a shoulder, those are the actions that have real meaning and relevance in life. The bible tells us to use our worldly wealth to help others. There is a lot of wisdom in that.

Still, meaning and relevance to be truly meaningful and relevant requires something more. A Word that will last and last and last... What can that Word possibly be?