Searching for the ghost orchid

Have you ever seen the film Adaptation? I watched it over Christmas and was struck by how accurately it depicted the human quest for fulfillment. While I might might not be the film's biggest fan for some of its other aspects, I like the fact that it reminds me that all that glitters is not gold. Charlie Kaufman, writer of the film, uses the movie as a self-exploration and an engaging take on a book called The Orchid Thief. In writing this screenplay, it seems Kaufman realized that "success" and even human relationship didn't quite do it for him. He, like his fictionalized character Susan Orlean, wanted to find something he could be passionate about. In searching for his passion, though, nothing seemed to fill. Kaufman's film hints at the truth of the matter: we were made to desire something about which we can be passionate, something that will (in all seriousness) "complete" us. We're all in a quest for the elusive ghost orchid, in one form or another.

We're all searching for that one object we can hold onto that won't lose its luster, that person we can latch onto who won't let us down, that job we can find that'll leave us satisfied, that backpacking trip through Europe where we'll "find ourselves." We're all searching for meaning.

Like the character Susan Orlean, we all want to be enthralled. As Orlean says "I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately." We want to establish and find our identities in something that is not ourselves, flawed as we know we are,-and aging-so we search for a source of fulfillment, a source of being. We want meaning and we keep searching, scratching, begging to find it in something on this earth. As time and experience will eventually tell, we won't.

In writing this blurb i'm reminded of the story of a man named Solomon, a man who had access to more worldly possessions and pursuits than any of us could likely imagine. Solomon had it all and yet all of it appeared to be empty. Beyond his worldly possessions, Solomon was a man endowed with great wisdom-the wisdom to see through the masks and facades and niceties to realize that they aren't enough and never were. The reality is, we all try to find something to be passionate about-something to latch our hopes and futures onto-as if it could somehow fulfill us and make us whole. So, we fill our bellies, our eyes, our sexual intrigues, with pleasurable and lovely things. But the eye never has enough of seeing, the ear enough of hearing-man is never satisfied. The once sweet scents of new things fade into the odors of familiarity, complacency, normalcy. One year later those new boots don't seem as nice as they once did, or the new car as shiny, or the relationship as perfect. Like the mysterious ghost orchid that Susan Orlean becomes enamored with, we finally find the object we coveted and longed for and then life goes on. This was never meant to be. These things were never meant to fill us in the ways we want them to, the ways we often try to make them fill us. The ghost orchids of this world are but whispers from a vineyard we've yet to behold, mere glimpses of something that will actually fill and fulfill us; that is to say, God himself.

In a world that often seems chaotic, confused, and hopeless,-especially if you live long enough-we are invited into a story. This story is full of meaning, vibrance and peace-a stark contrast to the vividly harsh realities by which we often become disallusioned. We're invited to be passionate abot something that will actually last. We are invited to know the living God, the author and finisher of the story, the beginning and end to all creation. In return, we receive life to the full, not the usual disappointment or disenchantment. This is hugely significant, significant not only because it gives us reason to rejoice and hold firmly to our passion, but also because it reminds us that we aren't the main character. Life is about much more than us, more than America, more than Obama's plans for "Change;" it's even about more than all of history, all of humanity. We find ourselves in something not our own, something we didn't achieve or deserve, but something we are given freely.