Existentialism

Dictionary .com chose “Existential” as the word of the year. 

While it may be difficult to clearly define the word existential, it is safe to say that this word, in part, deals with our existence and the meaning of our lives.

I like this word.  It is philosophical and brings me inward to ponder.  If I am being existential I am considering the big questions of life. Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the meaning of my life? If I am fly fishing in a river, pondering where I belong among the fish and currents, I am being existential.  

Most importantly (at least for me), if we look back to the founding father of existentialism, we find a melancholy man, Soren Kierkegaard who claimed to be a Christian.  As he pondered the meaning for his own life he was deeply convicted that God was an important part of the equation.   Kierkegaard believed that the individual is responsible for his choices. And that included choosing God.

What is strange to me, in our present age, is that in many of our evangelical churches, if one brings up anything that has a whiff of existentialism in it, he will likely draw some strange looks. Our evangelical churches should be the places we can go, to ask/share the difficult, painful, inward questions; bring them to the surface with our existential pain and angst, but often they are not.   

We should be able to ask, “Where are you God?  Are you here?” without offending anyone.

We should be able to ask “God can I expect or at least hope that you might intervene in my life in some manner?”

If God really exists and that if that hope is a possibility, then how could I not be wrestling with infinite possibility?  That wrestling then becomes a part of my existence and part of my existential human condition.