At that time, I was troubled. I think worrying about the meaning of life is essential around the age of twenty. It can happen in middle or high school too, but if worries about life overlap with adolescence, one may wander too much. Around twenty, when one has become freer, one needs enough time to think without being crushed or frustrated. If one worries then, even if no answer appears, one can live while holding in one’s heart the fact that the absence of an answer is also a kind of answer.
At that time I was devoutly involved in church life at a Catholic church. I worked in the liturgy group, sometimes served at Mass, and read the Bible diligently. I read many Catholic books and sometimes Protestant books too, because although people speak as if they know what comes after death, nothing is certain. Heaven is defined by the Bible, but the Bible is a set of books approved by the Church. Contents in other books that the Church did not approve for lack of evidence might, in fact, be true. The important thing is that everything is accepted on the basis of the “faith” that the Holy Spirit guides the Church. Therefore, even if people at the time made decisions under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they may have chosen a more passive conclusion according to conscience, or a more active conclusion despite conscience and even despite the Spirit’s opposition. The beginning of all doubt was whether there could truly have been no one who devoted himself to the worldly power advantage of the Church organization.
But even when I read texts as far as the Jeungsando Dojeon, there was nothing certain beyond someone said this or some tradition in some place says that. Of course, I did not conclude that because there is suffering in this world, God does not exist. Even then, vaguely like Tolstoy, I was thinking that the time when one suddenly sees the face of God might not mean a global event like the Rapture, but one’s own death from the perspective of each individual. Only now do I realize that this was what I was thinking. At the time, it was a very muddy and uncertain idea. But is it not common, when speaking of an individual’s death, to say that no one knows when that day will come?
I was zealous enough to ask for confession on the spot while walking with a priest, but one day, after concluding that nothing was certain, I decided to put some distance between myself and it all. Without telling anyone, that very day I stopped going to church and stopped all Catholic student activities. I closed the Bible and only read related books in the library. Perhaps the sacraments were simply European customs received in the way Korea observes seasonal rites and holidays. Such thoughts, fashionable then through things like Aquarian prophecy books or films like Zeitgeist, stirred up conflict in my head.
The claim that Christianity is the sum of existing religions was interesting, but not shocking. I thought such a thing could be explained as a kind of ideological evolution. Perhaps Rome could accept Christianity because those stages had already been passed through. What I wanted more was ground on which I could stand and laugh off any attack on Catholicism. I wanted Peter, that is, the rock.
Peter was literally a rock. If one stands on him, there is nothing that cannot be endured. As he did, I quietly repeated, “You are the Son of God.” At that moment, everything changed. It was instantaneous. Just as the flour host becomes the body of Jesus the moment the words “the Body of Christ” are fully spoken aloud, I understood, at the moment Peter’s confession, that phrase of about one second, took about one second to come fully out of the mouth and become “speech,” that no such explanation was necessary. That is faith. It is believing. One does not believe because there is evidence. Even believing a swindler seems to have evidence, but in truth that belief turns anything into evidence. We see this constantly in the stock market too. If one seeks evidence in faith, one can never believe. If one believes, everything becomes evidence of faith. The reason giving money to a swindler is bad is that one loses money and time. Not merely loses them, but hands them over. One becomes weak. But faith is not something that weakens me. It strengthens me.
During that period of worry, I read many books. I read religious books and popular science books. I also studied economics. I think I was searching for a way to make my life solid. I tried to lean on faith, but my life felt too soft and shapeless. Even if there were a foundation, I felt I could not build properly upon it, so I searched for something that could raise everything from root to pillar. But the conclusion was that I had to live my own life, and that my faith too had to be built as my own faith. Even if Peter firmly provided the foundation, raising the stem was my own task. In the end, I did not find a place on which to lean my life. There is no such thing. Life cannot be set upright by leaning it somewhere. The one who must raise life is oneself, and that is living. One only needs a basic conviction that the whole of life will not collapse. That may be religion, or it may be one’s family. Only then did I understand that one cannot find every answer in life, and that the fact of having tried to find answers can itself give great courage.
After that, I repeated cycles of trying various things, becoming zealous in faith, then not even going near the church threshold. I tried reciting various prayers every day. I devoted myself to the rosary. At one time I read the Bible every day; at another I did not miss the Angelus. I read The Imitation of Christ diligently and did Eucharistic adoration every day. I even prayed the Liturgy of the Hours every day without missing a day, though only night prayer. The conclusion is that if I feel a method does not suit me, there is nothing I can do. Yet every second of those zealous times prevents me from losing my faith. The times when I become loose again are not times when I lose faith and collapse. The zealous times make the cells of my life firm. My life stands upright. Lack of certainty about life is no longer a problem. All I needed was certainty that lacking certainty about life does not mean life has no meaning. I am still experimenting with my life. The experiment may continue until death, or I may find an answer before then, live with a peaceful heart, and meet the Kingdom of God. I am no longer curious about that. Whatever happens, my life is not soft and shapeless.
Original Korean article: 인생의 의미