Mining for Meaning: Harvesting Rich Veins of Meaning from Our Relationships with God, One Another, and Nature

A spirit of meaninglessness and lack of purpose plagues us these days, resulting in a great number of people wandering aimlessly. That's the bad news! But, against that background there is good news, too! There is an abundance of meaning which, like rich veins of gold, available to us and confronting us with the challenging of extracting and utilizing it for the enhancement of our life's quality. These precious veins of meaning are found in what the author considers to be our primary relationships, namely, our relationships with God, one another, and nature. Extraction and utilization of the treasure requires some adjustments to our oft times limited perceptions of God's character, the scope of who we consider to be our neighbors, and the radical importance of nature and our place within it. Also required are "tools" with which to do our mining work, i.e., personal characteristics one needs in approaching the God's grandeur, some intellectual and attitudinal characteristics that enable us to find the rich vein of meaning in those around us, and a description of attitudes and behaviors toward nature which enable us to unlock the vast potential for meaning deposited there for our enhancement?