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man. This supernatural "season" transcends our mortal, natural existence that we share with the rest of creation. This part of our make-up is one of the best proofs of a Supreme Being, an Eternal Creator. This "season", in which all people live, is timeless, changeless, and ever before us. Does one ever think about how a person will risk his safety for a stranger or defend an ideal to the death? If one honestly meditates upon this behavior, not seen in the natural world among other creatures, one cannot deny man's difference from the rest of nature, which is the spark of eternity breathed into us at conception. Just as the year journeys through its seasons, one's life is a journey but with an extra season called eternity. Where the season's journey is cyclical, man's path is linear, birth to death to eternity. In this lies our discontent and fears for the future. The linear nature of our life's path means we travel new ground each day and do not know where it will take us. St. Augustine wrote, "If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing."

The seasons following their circular path are reliable and consistent. The rest of nature does not have to concern itself with anything other than "to live each season as it passes." I am convinced of this, in large part because we face the maw of the future, the seemingly unending abyss of eternity. But in this peering into the crystal ball of the future and facing our fears lies our life's meaning. We can dream, imagine, create and love, the love of agape, of wanting the best for others.

Thoreau also has an exhortation for our close. It resounds with the meaning of life, much as when Fredrich Nietszchke said, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." The why is one's life's meaning, illumined as though the sun's rays are concentrated upon them: "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

Learn more about this author, Jeff Vidrine.
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