Article October 7, 1991 Issue

Building lives on a spiritual foundation

The ideas and beliefs we build our lives on make all the difference in the world. For lasting happiness, our foundation needs to be rock solid.

Roberta Ann Fox

Have you ever enjoyed the beauty of a well-built rock wall? Some of the rock walls we have the pleasure of seeing today were built decades, maybe even centuries, ago. Because they were constructed well, they have stood the test of time.

While landscaping our home I had the opportunity to build a rock wall. Never having done so before, I loved learning about the process. One must start with a firm, solid foundation and proceed with the right materials. Since each layer of stones supports the next, stability is essential for success. Structural integrity must be established as you go.

I enjoy paralleling these masonry efforts with our own efforts to build our lives. We all find ourselves looking for stability and confidence, a foundation that will not crumble away. Many have discovered that this stability can only be found in a spiritual sense of life. If we believe that life in matter is all there is, we will mistakenly depend on a human sense of things for our well-being. A comfortable mortal existence will be our goal. We will expect to find substance in material things, when all along it is the understanding of our true, spiritual selfhood and of our inseparable relationship to God that brings the real, everlasting stability we seek. Everywhere we turn, we eventually find that life based on a material sense of things crumbles away because true substance is of God, Spirit, not matter.

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Building lives on a spiritual foundation

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