WHAT IS PURPOSE?

Enter the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, walk the length of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, drive along California’s rocky coast at sunset, look at Mars through a powerful telescope, build a home with Habitat for Humanity, become a mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters, watch footage from the 1963 March on Washington, listen to the words of the Gettysburg Address. What do these experiences—which are open to anyone of any age or background—have in common? They all give us evidence of purpose—purpose in humanity and purpose in nature. Purpose in Humanity In day-to-day life, we encounter men and women who seem driven by something outside of themselves, whose commitment to their profession or volunteer activities, their community, or their cause seems to rise above the necessary, above the possible, above even the human. Indeed, we say that in such people we see “the divine spark.” Many religious traditions, both Eastern and Western, subscribe to the idea that there is something of God’s presence in each of us. Even for the growing number of people who describe themselves as spiritual, but not necessarily religious, there is a certain attachment to this concept of the divine spark. It is the sense that our lives can be guided from within by something more important than our simple survival, something not merely intellectual either, something in our souls. Of course, purpose in any aim is not necessarily admirable. There are those, for instance, whose purpose is at best selfish and at worst evil. More than two thousand years ago, the poet Horace wrote that “The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant’s threatening countenance.” Purpose in human beings, in other words, is not measured merely by strength of the will, but also by nobility of the goal. It is beyond our power to gaze into the souls of our fellow human beings to measure either the strength or the nobility of their purpose. Our only hope for understanding, let alone spreading, this inner fire that contributes so greatly to civilization as we know it is to study the external evidence of purpose. However, we can describe the deeds these purpose-driven men and women have performed, the works of art and architecture they have produced, the look in their eyes when they are working, the joy they bring to those around them, the needs they have met in their communities and their countries, and the various factors that helped them to discover this drive. Organizational Purpose We can study the power of purpose on an organizational level as well to see how human beings working together, each with an overwhelming inner drive, can accomplish great things. In Shakespeare’s Henry V, the Archbishop of Canterbury describes the way the English army can effectively win its war with France: As many arrows, loosed several ways, Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial’s center; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat. Though we might normally think of the battlefield as the place where people perform selfless heroic acts for each other and those back home, there are groups of civilians whose bond is just as strong and whose lives are just as driven by their cause. How do we recognize purpose in groups of people? The chemistry in a certain church group or humanitarian organization is evident in the miracles they seem to achieve. We say that these people work like “a well-oiled machine,” as if the parts were built to move together and their purpose were almost intuitive. Natural Purpose But if purpose in its purest form is something greater than individual human beings or even groups of people, then surely purpose can be found elsewhere in the world. The 19th Century Romantics looked at nature itself and found this “divine spark.” In his poem, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth wrote: The grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing Strode after me. Today we can see and study parts of the universe that Wordsworth could have hardly imagined on that dark night. And as scientists delve further into the composition of our own world and the stars and planets around us, they are discovering some remarkable things about the origins of the cosmos and perhaps even the purpose of life. Synergy of Man’s Purpose and Nature’s Purpose Though the evidence of purpose in man and purpose in nature are often observed separately, man and his environment are ultimately connected, and so are their purposes. Indeed, it could be said that part of man’s purpose is to learn nature’s purpose. Finding evidence of purpose in our fellow human beings as well as in nature and the cosmos can help us to see the benefits of purpose, understand its origins and, perhaps, even broaden its reach. Purpose is a subject worthy of study by parents, teachers, religious leaders, journalists, politicians, and everyone else who affects the lives of the next generation.