Signs are all about you, but perhaps you do not know how to interpret the most important of them?

You’re busy. You work, you raise a family, you care for people; and by doing so, you try to do the right thing—and yet, you still you feel empty, restless, or cut off.  You shoulder the burdens with a stoical dignity and utter reassurances to yourself that "such is the lot of a noble soul." 

That is your consolation prize in the face of life's hidden disappointments.  

Or, quite less nobly, you simply shrug with indifference at the meaninglessness of it all.  In the void, you feel no grounds of shamefulness and live out your life in accordance with both appetite and whim?

But between those two extremes what if that feeling of helplessness at the bottom is itself a sign of something even higher than one's own wounded dignity or even numbness to pleasure?  A sign that tells you something is wrong beneath the surface: the ground where meaning grows has been stripped of some nourishment that you need for true happiness?  That your life of pointless sacrifices or small indulgences actually does have a (counter-)point after all?  Is happiness even possible for people like you?

Hint: It is.

But there's a problem: do you know how to read the signs of your life?

Do not mistake the barrenness of your life for what life ultimately has to offer!  That would be like a gardener blaming the "bad seed" for not growing into a bountiful tomato plant while utterly ignoring his neglect of the plant! 

Turn away then from the modern way of understanding what counts as "real" or "valuable", if only to humor me, for we have given modernity its due.  Do not think of yourself as so diametrically opposed to what lie outside of your own head.  Instead, turn to other sources who took signs more seriously than we do "data points" or whatever.   To risk sounding pedantic: De-Cartesianize yourself! [NOTE: little by little, I will explain what I mean by this].

Surprisingly enough, one of the Dominican students of St. Thomas Aquinas, John Poinsot (1589-1644), was an early theorist of this discipline called "semiotics" (excuse the jargon) that elaborated the study of sign systems and conditions of meaning that promises a unified way of understanding the world and our places within it.  He was interested in this discipline so as to create a common framework by which all forms of knowledge (ranging from the natural sciences and everyday life to ethics and sacred doctrine) could be understood in common terms of how their meaningfulness, sense, or significance works.

The spiritual life is to be attentive to such signs and to take stock in the messages therein, which give sustenance to our life of prayer.  But alas, you must develop the ear for them to understand how God speaks to you...

Let us then get a different perspective.

Be well!

On the Science of Signs and Signification:

The "Leg Work" of my spiritual reflections on Signs (both in nature, society, and religious tradition) derives from the following scholarly milestones:

Part Ia. A Lexicon of Thomistic Semiotics

Part Ib. A Semiotics Index of the Thomistic Corpus

Part II. The Isagogue of John of St. Thomas (for the Summa Theologiae)

Part III. Tractatus de Signis (by John of St. Thomas) [& Its Reception by Modern Semioticians]

Part IV. The Biblical Commentaries and Sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas

Part V. Patristic Commentaries on "Signs and Wonders" [More to Come]

Part VI. Research in Biosemiotics: Phytosemiotics & Zoosemiotics (or, Ethology)

Part VII. 'Signposts in a Strange Land' --- Meditations on Walker Percy's Literary and Scholarly Output

Part VII. Re-reading Aquinas' Summa Theologiae through the Cosmovision of Christian Logos

Appendix A: The "Religious-Turn" in Wittgenstein Studies

Appendix B: An Annotated Bibliography of Semiotic Literary Criticism

A Timeline:

Post-Pentecost Cycle:

Stage 1: A Close Reading of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (Pars Prima) w/ Marginalia of Semiotic Terminology

Stage 2: An Annotated Commentary of John Poinsot's Isagogue [For Synthesis of Thomistic Philosophical Theology]

Advent-Candlemas Cycle:

Stage 3: A Close Reading of John Poinsot's Tractatus de Signis [w/ Notes and Commentary] alongside "New World" tracts on religious missionary experiences related to theological discourse.

Septuagesima-Lenten Cycle:

Stage 4: A Compilation of Aquinas' Sermons and Biblical Commentaries w/ Semiotic References (w/ Inter-Textual Commentary)

Easter Cycle [Novel Research]:

Stage 5a: Begin Annotated Bibliography of Semiotic Literary Criticism w/ a Focus on the interstices of Natural Theology and Foundational Theology (!)

Stage 5b: Begin Annotated Bibliography of Biosemiotics w/ a Focus on the interstices of Natural Theology and Foundational Theology (!)

Stage 6: A Critical Study of "Parson-Naturalists" of the English Reformed Tradition alongside the Jesuit Missionaries [Reflections on Nature & Grace, Faith & Reason, Religion & Science, etc.]

Ongoing Contributions:

A Compilation of Patristic Authorities on the Topic of "Signs and Wonders" and the Miraculous

Outlining Scientific Journals and Books on Biosemiotics, Phytosemiotics, and Zoosemiotics/Ethology

Book Reviews in Semiotic Literary Criticism

Annotated Bibliography of Cleric-Scientist Publications

The Role of Professor John Senior in the Formation of Clear Creek Abbey

A Necrology of Clear Creek Abbey