Contemplations on Coherence

I recently had a friend suggest to me that I embrace the word “coherence” as part of my aim for the next season of my life. As I approach the landmark of my 40th birthday, I suppose such an invitation is a wise and welcome one. The years are growing shorter and shorter as time passes by, and the questions about living a life of purpose and significance growing louder and louder.

But what is this notion of coherence?

When I hear the word, the first thing I think of is a very trippy film from 2013 having to do with quantum theory, which I may or may not recommend depending on one’s taste for sci-fi. But that sort of coherence, the quantum theory kind, is not exactly what I am referring to in these contemplations.

Coherence, defined by Webster, means simply “integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values; logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated; having the quality of holding together; clarity or intelligibility.”

When I think of this definition as a description of a life, I am compelled. There is something most appealing about an integrated life, where values and relationships and efforts and aspirations all unify into one cohesive whole. As I ponder the beauty of such a notion, I realize that it is indeed how we were created to live our lives as humans on the earth.

And yet we live in a time of dissonance, where the noise and chaos and division and hostility in our modern society has driven us into an absolute wilderness of fractured meaning. 

Our home, work, and social lives have been disrupted by a global pandemic, financial crisis, international tensions, and political controversies. We are conditioned by the news media to perpetually exist in a state of fear, suspicion, and animosity. We are tempted by the entertainment industry to consume mindless content for hours every day. We are bound to addictions that destroy our bodies, our relationships, and our minds. We participate in a workforce that is constantly shifting its expectations of our professions and outsourcing our trades to others or to artificial intelligence.

What sort of clarity and well-ordered purpose can we make of our lives amid such a disordered, unpredictable, intimidating mess?

Our focus is shattered to the point where it is almost beyond repair. A recent study of the Harvard Business Review discovered that the mere tasks related to “context switching” are disastrous to our productivity, mental wellness, and ability to contrate. They discovered that the average “cost of a switch is a little over two seconds and the average user in the dataset toggled between different apps and websites nearly 1,200 times each day. That means that people in these jobs spent just under four hours a week reorienting themselves after toggling to a new application. Over the course of a year, that adds up to five working weeks, or 9% of their annual time at work." And this is only in a work context, not including the context switching these study subjects were doing on their own time.

What sort of possible coherence, integration, and unity can we find in life when our brains are being trained to ping around the internet at the speed of a super-computer?

I don’t presume to have all the answers to these questions, nor even to know all the right questions to ask. What I do propose is that the conversation itself is essential to our prosperity, our purpose, and our peace.

I long for a life of coherence, where everything I choose to invest my time and energy into contributes to my wholeness. I long for a life of integration and meaning, where my relationships and my values and my work and my play align into a unified story of my time here on this earth.

As I continue the journey of pursuing this coherence, I think it begins with a choice, and continues with a prayer to the God who created heaven and earth for Shalom.

May the Creator

of bodies and beauty

of mountains and mystery

of seas and salvation

draw all of creation

back to Himself

again

Author: Melody Farrell

Melody Farrell is the co-founder and acquisitions editor of Lost Poet Press. She also serves as co-pastor of Element Church Tampa and operations manager of Echo Media Group. She is associate director of Circle A Ranch, a program which teaches teenagers principles of leadership. She serves on the board of Grow Into You Foundation, a non-profit that provides coaching, mentoring, and housing for teens aging out of the foster care system. She is a wife, podcaster, musician, and mother of two from Sarasota, Florida.