Tend and Cultivate

Carl Jung once suggested that the central neurosis of modern life is emptiness. Viktor Frankl observed something similar, writing that many people suffer from a deep sense of meaninglessness.

That diagnosis still feels timely. With all our technology, mobility, and options, why do so many feel hollow?

So where does meaning come from?

Years ago, I heard someone describe life as tending a garden. He said he could not cultivate the whole world, but he could tend the soil around him. He could nurture his family. He could show up for his neighbors. He could respond to needs placed directly in his path. He committed himself to growing what he could grow — kindness, integrity, generosity — and to helping others flourish where they were planted.

There is wisdom in that. We are not responsible for everything. But we are responsible for something. Each of us has a sphere of influence — conversations we enter, relationships we shape, work we carry out. When we choose to cultivate beauty and love there, meaning begins to take root.

The historian Will Durant wrote, “To give life meaning, one must have a purpose larger than oneself.” Jesus said something similar in his own way: “Give, and it will be given to you… a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.” In the economy of the kingdom, life expands as it is poured out.

Meaning is rarely found by looking inward alone. It is discovered as we give ourselves away in love — as we plant seeds of compassion, faithfulness, and hope in the soil entrusted to us.

Let us pray: Show us, O God, how to add beauty and love to this world. Open our eyes to the needs around us. And as we give, as we serve, as we love, grant that we may discover deeper meaning and the abundant life you promise; through Christ our Lord. Amen.