Occasionally, for enrichment and a different shape of theological communion, I attend the Unitarian church in my community.  What's Unitarianism?  Originally from Eastern Europe, Unitarianism declares, among other things, the essential worth of every human being, receptivity to all religious points of view, and the necessity of care and human community.  Although its theology seems open ended to many, it on the other hand has often been a bulwark against religious intolerance in the West.  All of us, Unitarianism says, are on a journey toward meaning, and far be it from anyone, other than for reasons of fundamental human dignity, to criticize the sincere spiritual seeker.  We are all different.
     On the particular Sunday I attended this church, its senior high school students presented the service.  In addition to leading us in the ceremony and ritual of a regular service, a few of them spent time at the pulpit sharing the current state of their spiritual convictions.  While some denied God's existence forthrightly, even stating that the search for truth and meaning "sucked," others indicated that they remained open to religious belief, principally, and perhaps predictably, given their geographic place, that of Christianity.  Raised to believe in the worth of every human being, they found great merit in Christianity's espousal of the same.  In reading the Bible, they found ample evidence that all people are equal and deserving of fairness and equity in all things of life.
     As a Christian, I of course found this heartening.  However, this was not necessarily because of their interest in Christianity, though I cannot deny this pleased me.  It was rather that these teenagers' openness to religious belief, Christianity or not, indicates that, at our core, we need meaning.  Moreover, although we can say that the quest for meaning "sucks," if we were not creatures of meaning, we could not say even this.
     Whether we like it or not, it seems that we are "captives" of a meaningful universe. Yet if we are solely material, individual arbiters of value in a teleology of our own making, how can this be?