On September 9, 2014 in his blog “People for Others,” Paul Brian Campbell, SJ posted this piece on The Meaning of Life. I have to say that I LOVE “People for Others.” (http://peopleforothers.loyolapress.com)  It is one of the few blogs that I follow and read regularly. And, this one, this one really just caught me at the very right moment and took my breath away and then brought it back again – and ain’t that just what being in-spired is all about?

So Paul wrote:

 In 1988, the publishers of Life magazine asked 300 “wise men and women” their opinions on the meaning of life.  Annie Dillard’s response had me from the first sentence.  It oozes an Ignatian sensibility:

We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.

According to the second law of thermodynamics, things fall apart. Structures disintegrate. Buckminster Fuller hinted at a reason we are here: By creating things, by thinking up new combinations, we counteract this flow of entropy. We make new structures, new wholeness, so the universe comes out even.

Don’t you just love the notion of “abetting” creation?

 As he loves the notion of abetting creation – and I do to – even more I like the notion of abetting, of aiding and abetting progress towards human rights. So today, this day, let us all notice, and aid and abet, human dignity where ever we may find it, in the small places, close to home, close to our hearts.