What is your song?

For a recent birthday gift, I received the excellent new book from Oliver Burkeman. It’s called Four Thousand Weeks – Time Management for Mortals. Four thousand weeks is the average human lifespan. And calculating it in these terms gives us a fresh perspective on just how short the whole enterprise is. In fact, it was a sobering moment, when I counted how many of my weeks have already gone!

One of the most enlightening chapters in the book is titled ‘cosmic insignificance therapy.’ In it, the author addresses the question of life purpose. What am I here for? What is my life about?

Burkeman highlights those moments in every human’s experience where they severely doubt the point of what they’re doing with their life. He acknowledges that this sentiment is an ancient one when he quotes the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes who says this:

“Then I considered all that my hands had done, and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

When we get to the point of questioning our purpose, our achievements, or even just the state of our life this is a healthy moment. Because it demonstrates that an inner shift has already occurred. We get to stand at a new vantage point where we realise that we cannot depend on fulfilment arriving at some distant point in the future once we’ve got our life in order, or when we’ve met the world’s criteria for success. Instead, we begin to understand that the matter needs addressing now. Why are we here? What does our individual life mean?

The covid pandemic has been called ‘The Great Pause’ where we all had a moment to take stock, to ask some of the big questions that we hadn’t previously asked ourselves.

And now with the death of Queen Elizabeth we have another pause, albeit a short one for these coming days where many will begin to ask similar kinds of questions again. Because the national and global conversation will centre around the language of destiny, legacy and a life well spent. And rightly so. It will also put into sharp visual focus the layers of power, wealth, status, and celebrity that these kinds of occasions bring, where we are all reminded where we sit in the pecking order within cultural or social structures. And whether, or not we are monarchists this event will prompt many people, either consciously or subconsciously, to address the question of what their own life means and what the sum of it will be when they also die.

The hazard, for us, however, in any discussion about ‘what matters most in life’ is that it tends to paralyse us with thoughts of grandiosity - an unspoken pressure that our lives need to be immense or impressive. We often have the sense that every one of us has some cosmically significant Life Purpose, which the universe is longing for us to uncover and then fulfil.

Burkeman, in his book, puts a spotlight on the blunt but incredibly liberating truth: what we do with our ordinary lives does not matter all that much. When it comes to how most of us use our finite time on planet earth, it seems the universe could not care less.

Out of the six thousand years of human civilisation, most of our own lives will have been a miniscule flicker of near nothingness in the scheme of things. The former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway says this: “to contemplate the massive indifference of the universe, can feel as disorientating as being lost in a dense wood, or as frightening as falling overboard into the sea with no-one to know we’ve gone.”

And yet this is oddly consoling. This ‘cosmic insignificance therapy’ helps to relax our shoulders. Because when we realise how little we matter it’s like putting down a heavy burden we didn’t know we were even carrying.

We go around thinking we are central to the unfolding of the universe. That’s just part of what it is to be human, and it gives us motivation to survive and procreate and dream big dreams. But the overvaluing of our lives also puts on unrealistic pressure of what it means to spend our finite time well, to make those four thousand weeks really count.

It suggests that each of us must have deeply impressive accomplishments, or a lasting impact on future generations, or at the very least that it must, in the words of the philosopher Iddo Landau ‘transcend the common and mundane.’ Whatever happens our lives must not be ordinary.

Burkeman says this is the mindset of the Silicon Valley tycoon who wants to make ‘their dent in the universe’, the politician fixed on leaving a legacy, or the novelist who secretly thinks her words will count for nothing unless they reach the heights and acclaim of Tolstoy.

It is a relief to be reminded of our humanity and insignificance because then we suddenly realise that we are holding ourselves to standards that we can’t possibly be expected to meet.

When we are freed from certain definitions of a life well spent, we can then consider the possibility of so many meaningful ways to spend our years and to realise that many of the ordinary things we are already doing are much more meaningful and significant than we had supposed. We are free to enjoy the ride. We savour the moment. We name our jobs whether lowly or spectacular as holy.

Once we no longer feel the stifling pressure to become a particular type of person, or achieve a certain level of success, we can embrace our personality, our strengths, and weaknesses. We can affirm our talents and our unique story and follow where it leads.

This is something Queen Elisabeth understood and tried to embody. Which is why she has commanded such respect from royalists and anti-royalists alike. Even in her first televised speech she seemed at home with the reality of our human limits and the modesty that comes with an awareness of a higher power.

She cited many things she would be unable to do in her position and then she said “but I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands…” This speaks of a humble inner attitude rather than an exercising of rank or status. Her Christian faith situated her very unique story within a much bigger one.

All our contributions to the world, however grand or small they seem to us are rooted in grace. Our four thousand weeks are not guaranteed. Neither is tomorrow. The Christian faith attributes all that is good in our lives to the divine activity with which we are mere participators and co-creators.

Today is our patronal festival where we honour our patron saint Mary. Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we usually associate with Christmas, is a song of praise for what God has done.

What I think is magnificent about Mary is that she sings a song (even if it’s not literally a song). It’s not a stuffy piece of theological prose. Her response to her own life circumstances is passionate poetry from deep within. It’s as if she’s playing her favourite piece of music and is dancing around the room.

“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.”

It’s unfortunate that different traditions within the church have misunderstood Mary’s place. Some traditions deify her. Others side-line her. But the irony is that Mary’s whole approach is to take the entire focus off herself and put it on God. It is this very attitude that gives her the status of being blessed. Because she gets it. She understands that humans are recipients of grace. And that God is one who joins with our ordinary fallible lives through the person of Christ.

This gives us the rank of being an heirs of God, according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians which we heard earlier. In his presentation of the Magnificat, the Gospel writer Luke keeps zooming out the camera from the close-up on Mary’s encounter with God, then out to the salvation of ancient Israel and then out further still to the salvation of the whole world.