At the end of each semester at Yale, I encounter a void. A vacuum plunges me into empty space and for a moment I am lost. The sense of obligation and scheduling imparted by academia is, suddenly and without fanfare, gone. Relentless duty fades to freedom and I face my own devices.
Inevitably the void arrives with a need for rest. That, too, is unsettling. Suddenly devoid of structure and lacking direction, I wonder how much I can afford to surrender. If I give in to my desire for non-attachment, freedom from responsibility shimmering its allure, I might never get going again. But if I simply keep going, as many of us do, forever tying myself to performances of busyness and cycles of production, I might never hear myself again.
In some ways, keeping the pace is easier than stopping; stopping beckons the quiet stillness where grief resides. At the end of each semester, caught inside this question, I wonder where to aim myself. Do I reach towards rest, despite the tension stillness holds? Or distract myself with meaningless rhythms of doing. The question itself reminds me that I am a human being. I want to remember how to be with my beingness.
My being hears this call and points out one means of resistance—writing. I will push back, within myself, I decide, on the inner notion I have adopted that whatever I write must be obviously useful, that it must contain some lesson or learning that can be mined, collected, and implemented by the person who encounters it. No, my being cries. I do not have to be of use.
Usefulness cast aside, I string words together because it gives me pleasure, because the organization of ideas brings with it a satisfying tidiness, because when I look around in the darkness of night, I know I must notice those silvery threads of webbing carried by spiders and the moon and snuffed out candles and weave them together in words. Every sentence an offering. Satisfying tidiness need not have a purpose, but I would argue that it does.
I have a friend who is a whiz at complicated math. They do the kind of math you see on chalkboards in movies, math that helps humans make sense of celestial bodies, for god’s sake. Last week I learned that “arithmetic” comes from “arithmos,” which in the Greek means “rhythm.”1 I thought of my friend, who is also a percussionist.
Now, when I see my friend standing behind the snare drum on a football field, I will remember how their rhythm manifests both in lines of music and the stars. That is the kind of satisfaction, the organization of life, I love. For me there is no coincidence: Mysterious tidiness nods toward underlying connection in the order of things.
For me there is no coincidence: Mysterious tidiness nods toward underlying connection in the order of things.
Perhaps we can find meaning; perhaps we have capacity for purpose, after all.
Too often we assume that having purpose means contributing to the world in some way that aligns with our values and gifts. Which is not nothing. But like everything else we do, our desire to find purpose through contribution is an overcomplication of why we are here. Our purpose has a core, and it is to love and be loved.
Christianity, of all things, asserts this. So does quantum physics. Many theologians insist that the world was created for god’s pleasure—that we are here for communion with the great love and each other. Quantum physicists offer a parallel and complementary translation of our experience: Source yearns for the matter it creates.2
Assuming that, in an existential or theological sense, we believe physicists’ source energy and whatever presence in the world the word “god” describes to be benevolent, generative, creative, and for lack of a better word to capture those ideas—loving—then that means, quite simply, that we are sought by the love that formed us. All we have to do is open ourselves to its undercurrent and will our bodies to receive.
We are sought by the love that formed us.
In a world laced with despair, I am mesmerized by the idea that our great connective mystery yearns for the same satisfying organization I do. When rhythm manifests in musical lines and the stars, that yearning makes itself known.3 This-pulling-towards-that brings comfort. Like the click of a latch settling into place. The settling, metal against metal, lever and groove finding their place, is a resolution and a cadence. It sounds like relief.
These days, I am exploring my purpose of loving and being loved through an intergenerational lens. My closest friends are five, seven, ten years younger, and my closest friends are ten, twenty, forty-five years older. Occasionally, with a distinct spark of recognition, I find myself and a friend in the same decade. Regardless of age, each friend reflects something back to me. They remind me of past versions of myself or reveal glimmers of what’s yet to come.
My younger friends bring abundant energy and enthusiasm. Together we cultivate faith in life and each other; we believe anything is possible and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My older friends show me what it means to have peace with where you are, how I might take a break from striving. They understand what it means for me to navigate career and marriage, priorities versus responsibility, exhaustion and finitude.
Through friendship, through our communion with the great love and each other, I encounter my own age and experience in new ways. No matter the differences at hand, when I see myself in the eyes of another, for a brief instant the stuff of life that matters clicks into place. The latch settles and our essence shines. Math shows itself in music and as a result we hear the stars. We are here—yes! We are here. And we are here to love.
Hi there, how is the new year treating you? Until another semester starts, I am on break from most things. The fire is on and the tree is still up. I am reading, writing, and generally remembering I have a body in my yoga room, which the rigors of institutional output and a dual-career marriage make easy to forget. Get this—I am now halfway done with my Master of Divinity degree! Time is nuts. See you soon in Between You and Me. Sending love! Till next time, take care out there.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. Can you help us grow? Send this to a friend and ask them to subscribe. Share it on Instagram and tag @lauren_only. If you enjoy this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support more essays like this one. Thank you so much for being here!
Clarice Lispector, An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures, p. 88.
Here I am referencing and paraphrasing the work of Willie James Jennings, theologian, and Karen Barad, physicist and feminist theorist.
Theologians might call this the doctrine of revelation.
Love this. Xo
This took my breath away. Wow. This will be one I read. Re-read. And read again. I feel these words are an antidote to despair. Thank you!