What Makes You Feel Most Alive?


Yesterday, we walked through downtown Asheville. There is a Himalayan shop of products from that part of the world...rugs, music, statues (idols really, because of the association with Hinduism and Buddhism) on a side street. I leafed through a book about the gods...so many gods, so little time. It would really stress me out to try and appease them all... 

Asheville being in the mountains, elevates my thoughts to a higher plane. Geography can be spiritual to a degree and the mountains for me convey peace, majesty, and a retreat from the day-to-day life in the horizontal world.  There was a panoramic poster for sale of the Mt. Everest region topography that I had seen the previous night in a Nepalese restaurant that intrigued and captivated me. 

We speak of mountain top experiences and I was reflecting several days ago about activities that make me feel most alive. Here is what came up in that range:

- Reading Great Books, the Bible inclusive. I am drawn to transcendence by words. Whereas some may feel most worshipful in song and in an assembly, my soul sings when I encounter verses of depth and beauty in solitary reflection. Make each line blaze. Words as wood in the fireplace of imagination. Books were my friends when I was quite friendless. They made no demands, offered their wisdom freely, and provided consolation and connection when very little else did. A society that does not read great literature dies as a tree with no water.         

- Pushing myself physically to the limit when running and lifting weights. God made me a good athlete and when I encountered serious knee problems in my late teens, I went through years of wondering why God would grant a gift and then impair it. My knee is still far from restored but God has granted a degree of functionality that allows me to push myself in exercise. "I sang the blues because I had no shoes, until I met a man on the street who had no feet." I can do something but not everything yet that is far better than nothing athletically. Perfectionism ruins many a day. It is as if saying, the sun only shines in a cloudless sky.    

- Not a lot of friends, but good friends, maybe few in number. I am not an extrovert by nature. I have a public persona in my work as a school counselor...the very public in the public school, creates opportunities for me to interact with a host of others in very interesting and enriching ways. Yet, when the clock winds down  on the day, I look to depart and connect elsewhere, authentically and openly. I can't reveal entirely who I am in my vocation as I need a life invested outside of my career. I am quite concerned that the Christian manifest these days seems to be in retreating from engagement with non-Christians. We don't even know how simply to be friends with non-Christians and serving without making a big production out of it. People need friends, who will be there in good times and bad. That we in the Church have lost this capacity makes me think that we just don't want to be hassled by the mess of the world. Our self-focus is really unhealthy. 

How about you? What makes you feel most alive? How in 2012 can you make such things more prominent?   


    

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