Do you have your own Desiderata?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2023 (755 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.”

If you were, like me, a teen in the 1970s, you may recognize that as the opening lines of Desiderata. Written by American Max Ehrmann in 1927, it was reprinted on posters in coffee shops and dorm rooms across North America. It was even a hit song on the radio in 1972.

Desiderata — Latin for “things desired” — became like a credo for many people, including me. It seemed even more profound since most of the posters not only removed Ehrmann’s name but gave it the wrong publication date. Even today it is not unusual to find versions that say: “Found in Old St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore, 1692.”

For a teenager wondering about his future and place in the world, the concluding lines brought special comfort: “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.”

Desiderata came to mind when a Christian friend told me he had written a personal manifesto to help guide him in the last third of his life.

Like many, he had been struggling to know what he believed. He began writing the manifesto a year ago as a way to answer the question: “What is my faith?”

To help him find that answer, he started writing what he called a “personal creed.” With his permission, here’s what he wrote.

There is a fundamental unity underlying all that exists and has ever existed. Everything, living and otherwise, is fashioned from the same basic materials and returns in due course to its environment. Human beings are star-stuff too, and we should be humbled to know that the lowliest life form or object we can imagine is crafted from the same elements as us.

I choose to place my confidence in the idea — to accept in good faith — that whatever creative force or forces brought being into being imbued the cosmos with regenerative good will so that beneath even the direst of human experiences extend everlasting arms of love.

These convictions enable personal hope and security, a sense of home and always the possibility of abiding peace and contentment (“finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest”). My fondest idea of “heaven” envisions an unending odyssey of satisfying creative expression.

The human quest for meaning and purpose is universal, perennial, and persistent. Who am I? Why am I here? Do I matter? Does what I do matter? What happens when I die? These questions have stimulated and vexed humanity from time immemorial. Individuals in every generation must confront the great paradox of the immense value we each accord to our lives, against the vast informality of life as a whole. Miniscule as our contributions may be in the big scheme, we are nonetheless somehow significant.

The core function of the human task is to “mend the world.” Our work is to make things better; to create sanctuaries of order amidst the chaos of entropy. We are called to bend the needle of the moral barometer in life-enhancing directions.

Religions are the primary institutions expressing humanity’s responses to our longing for a sense of belonging within our uncertain world. Beneath their varied and sometimes contradictory approaches flows a confluence of deep wisdom.

The Jesus Way is a reliable portal to life wisdom and spiritual transcendence. Any institution’s adherents are apt to pursue agendas and attach accretions that obscure and diminish some foundational truth. The Christian tradition, marred and sullied as it is, has both the substance and capacity to embrace the challenges of human experience. It is both deep and wide. I look to Jesus as exemplar and quintessence of eternal love and abiding truth.

He went on to acknowledge the reality of conflict and suffering in the world, citing the Prayer of St. Francis (“Make me an instrument of your peace”) as a practical way to offer humble service to others.

Or, as he put it, “I aim for a posture of compassion and empathy … my life ambition is to be a blessing, a boon to the spirits I encounter in my days. This requires me to be honest with myself and non-judgmental with others.”

Calling himself a “wayfaring pilgrim headed for some celestial outcome,” my friend’s goal in life is to “love the Creator who brought all into being. Love my neighbours and myself. Act with equitable goodwill. Extend mercy. Live with humility and grace.”

How about you? Do you have a personal manifesto or credo, your own Desiderata?

faith@freepress.mb.ca

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