{"id":5077,"date":"2025-12-02T09:13:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2025-12-02T09:13:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T14:13:35","slug":"the-meaning-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/02\/the-meaning-of-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of It All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder ways that we can ready ourselves to receive Jesus, once again, into our own hearts.<\/em>

Every fall, the editors of Dictionary.com choose a Word of the Year.

It\u2019s a term or phrase that captures a \u201cpivotal moment in language and culture\u201d \u2013 something that reflects social trends and global events of the previous 12 months.

This year they chose a pair of numbers: 67. \u00a0

If you looked at that and said, \u201csixty-seven,\u201d you are so not cool. It\u2019s pronounced six-seven, and can also be written 6 7, 6-7, or six-seven. Early this year, 67 first appeared as online jargon \u2013 one of those internet memes that explodes in popularity via millions of social media exchanges. By summer it had become an international phenomenon. As far as anyone can tell, the craze was launched by the song Doot Doot (6 7)<\/em> by the rap artist Skrilla.

What in the world does it mean?

\u201cThere\u2019s not really a meaning<\/em> behind 67,\u201d explains Ashlyn Sumpter, a 10-year-old who lives in Indiana. It\u2019s more like an inside joke. It\u2019s funny. And it\u2019s especially funny because younger generations can torment their parents and grandparents, who, when asking for a definition, are only confirming the fact they are hopelessly clueless.

The reason you don\u2019t ask for a definition of 67 is that there is no definition. Some kids say it means \u201cmaybe this, maybe that,\u201d or \u201cso-so\u201d \u2013 something akin to the French term \u201ccomme ci, comme ca<\/em>.\u201d It\u2019s an all-purpose answer to any question. Then there\u2019s the signature hand gesture \u2013 raising both palms face up, moving them alternately up and down.

If you haven\u2019t seen anyone do that, just watch the next time a basketball team scores 67 points. Younger fans will jump up and start moving their hands, while their elders look on with incomprehension.

Dictionary.com acknowledges that their Word of the Year is \u201cimpossible to define. It\u2019s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. It\u2019s the logical endpoint of being perpetually online, scrolling endlessly\u2026\u201d

So, what\u2019s the best way to respond to the 67 people in your life? Laugh along with them. After all, it\u2019s just a joke \u2013 something that means nothing at all.

Which brings us to Christmas. According to contemporary society, what is December 25 supposed to mean<\/em>?

American culture has settled on a formula that goes something like this:\u00a0\u201cBe a bit nicer to everyone during the last month of the year and buy lots of stuff to help the economy.\u201d\u00a0

According to the Hallmark Channel, as we\u2019ve previously noted, Christmas is a great time to (a) get a new boyfriend or girlfriend, (b) reconcile with an estranged friend, (c) meet someone from a royal family, or (d) get a new boyfriend or girlfriend who used to be an estranged friend or someone from a royal family.

This is another way of saying that Christmas \u2013 with its exhausting demands, colorful decorations, and commercial obligations \u2013 has devolved into little more than an annual multi-week distraction. From a secular perspective, it really doesn\u2019t mean<\/em> anything.

This should not come as a surprise. For a very long time, a number of our culture\u2019s highly regarded influencers \u2013 authors, artists, and philosophers \u2013 have assured us that nothing has any meaning at all. \u00a0

Cartoonist Charles M. Shulz, the creator of Peanuts<\/em>, said, \u201cI don’t know the meaning of life. I don’t know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it’s a complete mystery.\u201d<\/em>

When novelist Kurt Vonnegut was asked by his young son, \u201cWhat are people for?\u201d he replied, \u201cWe are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.\u201d<\/em>

The late satirical British writer Douglas Adams, who penned \u201cThe Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy,\u201d declared, \u201cThe Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is\u202642!\u201d We can only wonder what he would have thought of 67.<\/em>

Novelist Henry Miller observed darkly, \u201cLife has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.\u201d<\/em>

Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus observed even more darkly, \u201cThe literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself.\u201d<\/em>

Then there\u2019s Israeli philosopher of science Yuval Noah Harari, who declared, \u201cAs far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual\u2026 Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.\u201d<\/em>

So, what is the meaning of life \u2013 or the meaning of anything at all?

So many voices, so many choices.\u00a0

What we know for sure is that we all have to make a decision.\u00a0Which of these voices – or which of the myriad other opinions expressed through the centuries – is spot on?\u00a0Even if we say, “I don’t know,” or “I believe there is no meaning,” we’re making a choice.\u00a0We’re choosing to trust our own perceptions.

We will either assign meaning to whatever gets us through the next 24 hours or numb ourselves in the face of meaninglessness with work, sex, substances, or perhaps our favorite Christmas albums.

Or we can ponder another possibility.

We can assess the claim that Someone has actually declared<\/em> an answer to the riddle of life\u2019s meaning. Jesus said, \u201cAnd this is the real and eternal life: that they know you, the one and only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent\u201d (John 17:3). \u00a0\u00a0

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which was written in the 1640s as a kind of crash course in Christianity, is composed of 107 questions and answers.\u00a0The most famous question, the first one, has been recited from memory by generations of children (with the understanding that \u201cman\u201d stands for \u201chumanity\u201d):\u00a0

\u201cQ: What is the chief end of man?\u00a0A: Man\u2019s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.\u201d

Which is a powerful clue concerning the meaning of Christmas.\u00a0

At the center of the Bible\u2019s account of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth there is a mind-bending miracle.\u00a0

God becomes a human being.\u00a0The artist becomes part of his canvas.\u00a0This is so startling and unexpected that an entirely new word had to be coined just to describe it.\u00a0That word is incarnation.\u00a0<\/em>Think of chili con carne<\/em> \u2013 chili with meat.\u00a0God himself became enfleshed \u2013 he took on carne<\/em> \u2013 in order to become one of us.

It may be, as you make your way through December, that you will become exhausted, frustrated, or misunderstood. Things will go wrong. Accidents will happen. \u00a0\u00a0

But God won\u2019t be watching from a distance, like a spectator seated in a heavenly balcony. He will know exactly what it feels like to be you. In the person of Jesus, he has personally been there.<\/em>

In the immortal words of Linus, \u201cThat\u2019s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.\u201d

And no internet meme will ever compare.


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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,23,232],"class_list":["post-5077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-incarnation","tag-meaning-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5079,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions\/5079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}