The last words of the James Bond novelist, Ian Fleming, allegedly were: 'It's all been a great lark!' These sentiments have remained with me, because I've often thought, "how sad". Does life have no deeper or lasting meaning, especially for all those people for whom it's not 'a great lark'? Well if it isn't about having a great lark, what is life about?
A year ago I looked in the mirror and instantly disliked the over-weight baggy-eyed vision which gazed, bleary-eyed, back at me. Shocked, I thought to myself: 'As a boy, I most certainly did not imagine myself growing up to look like this!' The result: a second-hand bike, a fitness regime, significant weight-loss and visually, a slimmer, fitter, sharper-eyed mirror image. Vanity, self-disgust, motivation, fulfilling one's potential ... elements of each of these, but perhaps the last named is the most enriching and fruitful.
But how do we discover our potential or uncover our talents? How do I find my best self and bring it to fruition, at least, sometimes? The relentless pace and addiction to 'rushing' of city life does not lend itself towards the 'vacant or (in) pensive mood' of Wordsworth's countryside, allowing us to reflect on the meaning of life in pleasant pastoral tranquility.
Our quiet moments of reflection are invariably stolen ones - in the shower, journeying to work, waiting for the kettle to boil. So how do I discover my true self? Enough scrutinising ... answers!
What gives me a real fire in the belly? What do I love doing? What am I happiest at? What do I really enjoy in life? What do I most look forrward to? The answers to these questions should go some way towards unveiling my true self.
Childhood experiences as an altar server; the Latin, the bells, the candles and early morning dark, all blessed me with a precious sense of the mystery and mysticality of faith. Teenage retreat experiences of the proximity and tangibility of God heightened this sense. Yet how does one find and live faith in the city?
The profit-generating ethic of working in Insurance sat uncomfortably with the Chtistian ethic of care and concern for others. The business ethic was to compete or put one over on others for the greater profit rather than the greater good. That's fine, but it did not generate fire in the belly or fulfill the heart's desire.
Strangely, running a Bar for five years provided more intimate and humane interaction with others, albeit in vino.
So what do to? What am I searching for? What is my real desire? In my deepest, most inner self, what am I being called to do?
To spread the Gospel, in some sort of competent and convincing way, but not contemplatively in the rural idyll, rather than in the frustratingly fragmented turbulence of city life, that's the real challenge. That seems to express what the aching heart yearns for.
But, what is, where is, the avenue that would most comfortably sit with a desire to spread the Gospel? This was desire with a small 'd'. But Ignatius of Loyola asks, 'Have you the desire to serve, God?' 'Mmm, perhaps, but I'm not sure.' Then, says Ignatius, 'If not, have you the desire of the desire?' Now, it's much easier to say 'yes' to that. Then a simple but enlightening insight: One does not have to become a priest to serve the Lord.
As our understanding of Christian service moves beyond religious life and liturgy, an ever-increasing number of people - overwhelmingly lay - are serving the Gospel outside Church services; with the homeless, the sick, the unlearned, the orphaned, the uninitiated. No shortage of job offers or opportunities there, travel guaranteed if desired!
'Cast your cares upon the Lord, trust in him and he will act,' says the Psalm. I did and he did. A course and then degree in Catechetics - propelled into schools, a captive though often cynical and critical youth audience.
Then what a strange transformation; my yearning for a role in faith becomes their yearning (these young people) for truth, meaning, forgiveness and unconditional love. Their yearning, though many of them are as yet too life-inexperienced to know it, is for the whole Jesus package. The task in schools is to be a John the Baptist, a herald or envoy of Jesus, promising the gifts of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness - what a wonderful 'life-menu' offering meaning, hope and destiny.
We may search, but God finds us, and we, led by the Spirit, like John in the desert, can build the Kingdom in the backstreets, on the beaches, at the parties in the pubs.
For wherever people meet to speak words, we can be his body, in the world.
Daniel McNelis