THE PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE

Our life is short, very short. Being human, as beautiful as it can be, means being limited, fragile and mortal. Within our humanity we find great capacity for goodness, wherein the highest form is divine love, contrasted and prevailed by our capacity for evil, which has brought about our fallen world. We live in a world where tragedy, pain, betrayal, disease, famine, hate, cruelty, injustice, corruption, indifference, idolatry, and death surround us . Thus, understanding how to best conduct ourselves in this fragile and brief life is imperative, because despite the hardships, we are also given the opportunity to live the vast goodness of life. Thus, one ought to ponder how to achieve ‘the good life’, that is the best life one can contemplate given the limits of reality. One must ask oneself, how do I want to live a full life, a life of love, joy, peace, excitement, fulfillment, prosperity, wellbeing and contentment?

Many have pondered thoroughly on such questions, giving birth to many philosophical schools of thoughts and religious traditions. I wish to explore the answer to this quest through the lens of Christianity, as it has provided me with profound fulfillment in following the way of Jesus who I believe to be the ‘way, life and truth’ (John 14:16). We are like sheep, trying to find green pastures to dwell in, but are surrounded by so much noise, distractions, gurus, idols, that the voice of The Good Shepherdseems far away and of difficult comprehension. The following verse remains very true to this day:
‘10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10 - NIV).
My attempt is to truly understand what it means to live in today’s complex age, life to the fullest, or as I call it, to add a touch of originality and idealism, life to the max, as it is my name and it means life to the greatest.
Together we  will explore many ideas, traditions, and interpretations of the world to have a fuller understanding of the heart of the matter, discerning the wheat from the chaff, and collecting all the precious insight and knowledge that our scientific and humanistic disciplines provide us with. It will be a long and difficult  journey, yet meaningful and exciting.

We all have to face life’s curses, as well as its blessings. We all have one brief life. Understanding how to best approach it is one of the most important questions one can ask oneself. I began such a quest in the midst of my battle against cancer at the age of 17, struggling to stay alive day by day. In that year-long period I faced many terrible physical tribulations, as well as emotional and mental, having to come to terms with the death of a friend with advanced brain cancer, the momentary loss of mental stability and capacity to meet my own basic needs after having suffered a severe epileptic seizure. Surprisingly, contrasting the dread and the languor, I experienced blissful moments where joy, peace and love overflowed. Indeed, being emptied of who I was, being stripped away of my grandiose desires and ambitions for my life, being left with nothing to focus on if not the pure present moment, in that state of extreme vulnerability, I was able to experience such fullness of life from the smallest things on those which I took for granted, the smile of a doctor, the kind gesture of my mother, a simple tasty meal, a hug from a friend, and the love of people (more on this in an upcoming newsletter). Since then, I have dedicated myself to become a person of love, with Jesus as the absolute embodiment, as I believe that ultimately, the answer to the question that lays the foundation for this endeavor is ‘to be loved, and love wholeheartedly back’. In today's age of digitalization, hyper-connectivity, overproduction, automation, overabundance, distractions, pleasures, technological supremacy, climate change, overpopulation and underpopulation, fast pace and productivity, and constant change, how can one become a thriving person of love?

I do not know which stage of life you are in. Maybe you are in the fullness of your youth, full of pleasure, little worry, touched by little pain. Maybe you are consuming the last years of your springful young age and you have tasted in abundance both the goodness and evil of life. Maybe you have entered a stage of dullness and numbness, where your passion for life has expired. Maybe you have achieved the peaks of life and you look around you with gratitude and peace. Regardless, we should strive to have a deep desire to live life to the full, to the greatest degree that we can, life to the max. Thus, I hope that these few thoughts can help lay out a path that is both useful, intresting and exciting, for the mind and the soul.

In the spring of this year (2024) I graduated from a program called ESOM, European School of Missions, dedicated to edifying our churches by building up a new generation of servants and helpers for the Kingdom. In my local church, for the past year, I have been actively assisting with the Teen and Campus ministries, and just recently was invited to be part of the local Teaching ministry. My ambition is to expand my services to our ICOC family of churches. For this pursuit, I’ve been advised to create a newsletter to practice my writing and mostly to offer an outlet for my personal research. I wish that the targeted audience to be students and young professionals, who have a basic intellectual and linguistic maturity, yet I’ll seek to simplify the ideas within my newsletter to the best of my degree, without removing their richness and profoundness.
Given my involvement in the teen and student ministries I thought to produce content narrowing my targeted audience to the latter. Thus in parallel production of material concerning my main research I aim to complete a daily quiet time series by the and of the year and then start a monthly Q&A answering questions from teens and students all over our European churches (as well as some cool visual content on Instagram).

I ask for patience and grace as my ability to express my thoughts and ideas in written words still needs improvement. Also, producing content of this sort takes extensive time, as there are many sub topics to explore and writing is difficult.  So please bear with me and please allow me some grace if I’m not always on time, as my main ‘job’ at the moment is studying (nuclear engineering) as well as serving my local church in the ministries I mentioned. Finally, I ask for feedback, suggestions, constructive criticism, questions and comments highlighting what you found useful, to help me improve the quality of the content. Thank you.

I leave at the very end the prototype structure of the content I seek to work on for my main research over the next years, and more specifically this year (2024). The program is still in its early stages and will be completed along the journey.
(Note that I aim to accomplish the program in the span of 3 to 5 years)

Introduction: The Pursuit of a good life - introduction to my teaching ministry

Chapter 1: Reconstructionism, overcoming spiritual immaturity

• Part One, The philosophical tradition of Deconstructionism

• Part Two, Wrestling with doubts and pain

• Part Three, Building New Foundations

• Conclusion, A guide to: Reconstructionism, overcoming spiritual immaturity

Transition Essay: The Antidote to Suffering - A key for the good life (Meaning)

Chapter 2: The first source of Meaning: Relationship with God, others, yourself

• Part One, The relationship with yourself

  • The Body - Guidelines for physical health &  virtuous body

  • The Mind - Guidelines for mental health &  virtuous mind

  • The Spirit - Guidelines for spiritual health &  virtuous spirit

• Part Two, The relationship with others

  • …

• Part Three, The relationship with God

  • …

    Chapter 3: …

• Following you can find a structured explanation in detail of the teaching plan for the next twelve months:

  • Main research, chapter 1 (2024-2025): Reconstructionism, surpassing spiritual immaturity
    I grew up in the church, and as many kingdom kids I found myself at one point of my spiritual walk wondering if what I was taught in my upbringing was true. I saw many brothers leave the church because in moments of spiritual crisis they decided to embark on the journey of hammering their faith to see if anything would remain standing. I have found myself in such a circumstance not too long ago, and came out of it more faithful by the grace of God. Clearly approaching this topic is of grave importance. Most importantly, such a process proves useful to justify and validate the bias or initial conditions of our quest (soon I’ll release a second more detailed introduction to this chapter).

  • Daily Quiet time series, chapter 1 (2024): Contemplative read of the first 30 chapters of the Psalms in the attempt to nurture an emotional relationship with God, highlighting the most profound aspect to our interaction with God, that is to wrestle with him (hence Israel, those who wrestle with God).
    Parallel to the latter, an analytic read of the gospel of Mark concerning Jesus’ heart and character in the hope that through admiration we may reach imitation. Meaning, by ‘being with him’, we can ‘become like him’.
    (By the end of the year I will publish the series)

  • Q&A, month of January (2025): Heaven and Hell.
    A topic in which many find a stumbling block for their faith, and many more have a very wrong understanding of it. I did my ESOM research paper, some sort of thesis on such a topic, and discovered it to be extremely surprising and insightful.  (In order not to overwhelm myself, I will start this part from the beginning of next year. I might publish a few answers to some questions posed by my own teens during our classes.)
    
    

  If you are interested in keeping up with my research and teaching content do consider subscribing to my newsletter. It’s going to be a very exciting, insightful, honest and meaningful journey. It’s free anyway!

  Massimo Guglielmi