The Meaning of Life: What Good Am I?

As a Hospice chaplain, I encounter this question in so many ways every day. I meet women and men who are approaching the end of their lives and who, in one way or another, are pondering life’s most difficult yet potentially most fulfilling question.

The question is difficult because it requires tremendous amounts of personal reflection. Such reflection involves all our faculties: mind, body, heart and spirit. Our minds remember the events and people that have shaped our lives. Such memories may cause both pleasant and even unwanted emotions to spring forth, and we feel those deeply in our heart. We bless those who are closest to us with our bodies: a gentle smile, a warm embrace, tears of happiness or sadness. And our spirits are granted opportunities to allow more and more of God’s presence into our lives.

Such reflection in the face of one’s own death is a deeply personal experience and presents a unique (and unrepeatable!) opportunity: discovering the meaning of one’s life.

Consider Sam, a patient who has recently been asking these sorts of questions. (Sam is, of course, not his real name.) Sam is a retired farmer who had always been physically active. Always able to support himself and his family, he had never experienced any significant sickness in his life until he was diagnosed with cancer a few years before I first met him. The progression of Sam’s cancer leaves him physically weakened, so that he is only able to move from his bed to the bathroom and to his favorite chair. He lives with his daughter and is surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who love him deeply. Sam is a Christian whose faith in God has sustained him through some of the darkest and most trying moments of his life.

I see Sam every couple of weeks or so, depending on how he is doing, and I think he genuinely enjoys the visits. I know I do. On the previous two visits I was not able to talk with him much. On both occasions he was very sleepy and asked if I could come back. On one of those visits he seemed a little disoriented and confused, as if he were trying to figure out who I was. This was unusual for Sam, and I knew in the back of my mind his time with us could be very short. My most recent visit with Sam, however, revealed a man who does not easily succumb to adversity. He had lost some of the twinkle in his eye and I could tell he was steadily growing weaker with each passing day, but on that day Sam wanted to talk. So we talked. And he said to me,

“I want you to know how hard it is for me to just sit here, day after day, like this. I used to work all the time, and now I just sit. What does it all mean? I know God has me here for a reason, but what is it? I know I’m sick and dying, but what does my life matter anymore? What good am I?

Though he didn’t express any outward sorrow, I could feel the grief in what he said. Sam was struggling with what so many elderly and infirmed struggle with daily: What good am I? Society has told them they are “no good” because their usefulness to society has come to an end. They cannot earn money; they cannot help others earn money; they cannot perform a function deemed appropriate by the general population. So they are forgotten. They are cast aside and largely ignored.

Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not as if an official representative from the culture knocks on their door one day and says, “Hi. I’m here to inform you that since you are of no use to anyone you are now deemed unworthy of our attention.” It’s rarely that overt. The message comes in a thousand little ways, though. Our culture values those who do. To be deemed worthy you must take action; seize the day; full steam ahead!

In short, if you cannot do, then you are – in the words of Sam – “no good” to anyone.

But that’s where the culture is wrong about Sam, is wrong about the many thousands of people who are growing older each day. The culture is wrong about those who can no longer do for themselves or their families. They are wrong about those who, in the minds of so many in the culture, are draining our precious resources and burdening our health care system. The culture says such people are no good. I say the culture is wrong – dead wrong.

John writes in his first epistle: “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.” (1 John 3:11) And again, the late Henri Nouwen writes: “The question is not, ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’” (Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1994 ed., 71)

What is the meaning of life? It’s love. The ability to give and receive love. That’s what life is about. And that means so many things to so many people. For now, I will answer Sam’s question, as I tried to answer it the day he asked it. What good are you, Sam? You are infinitely precious, because you are a representative of God’s love in a culture that is so frantic about doing something they can never stop to simply be the channel of love God created them to be.

Our culture doesn’t begin to understand what love is all about. Perhaps we are missing an enormous lesson in caring for our elderly. Instead of seeing them as a burden or a drain on resources or worthless because they can’t do anything “useful” anymore (like earning money and stimulating the economy!), why not see them as human beings created in the image of God to receive and give love? Perhaps they can teach us a powerful lesson – perhaps the most important lesson! – How to truly love one another.

Every bite of food or drink given; every adult diaper changed; every bath given or bed changed – all of it is an expression of love. Every hug and every tear, every laugh and every story shared. Every prayer offered, every bit of medicine given to relieve pain. Every bit of counsel, every moment just spent in their presence – all of it. ALL OF IT teaches us how to “love one another.”

Let us not forget that Jesus said our very salvation could depend on how we have treated those whom society has deemed outcasts: the hungry, the poor, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46). Amazingly, if we love and honor those whom society has cast off with disdain, then we will discover that we have actually loved Jesus. Wow. Now that ought to be an eye opener.

I received a phone call tonight from one of our on-call nurses. (I was the chaplain on-call.) She said she was at Sam’s home with his family. Sam had just passed away. Even though I am surrounded by people who are dying every day, I was truly shocked. I had visited with Sam so many times and was always blessed by his presence, his sweet spirit, his gentleness and light-heartedness. Sam wasn’t just another patient. He was my friend. And I will miss him.

What good were you, Sam? You were good enough to receive someone like me into your home with warm hospitality and grace. You were good enough to talk with me, to laugh and to cry. You were good enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable and share your struggles of worthiness with me.

You were a channel of God’s love, Sam. You were good. And I will always remember you. Thank you.