Sleep-Walking Through Life
For years, as a Christian, I determined that my “job” was to inform everyone I encountered of their “heaven/hell” status. I was good at it too! I could even give you a checklist of “requirements” to get into heaven, and I can assure you the hoops you were required to jump through were daunting. It was not for the faint of heart! It’s no wonder I was never successful at “converting” anyone, including myself!
We sleep-walk through life with no clue what we’re doing here or that our lives have meaning and purpose — but they do!
We are all called to use the gifts and talents we already possess that have been uniquely designed for us. But it takes awareness on our part. We can be so enmeshed in, and blinded by, the things of this world we miss out on our whole reason for being here.
If you are going through life day after unremarkable day, schlepping through the same routine to ad nauseum — STOP IT! Your life has a purpose people. God needs your brilliance and love to shine his light in a darkened world
Leo Tolstoy’s novel, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, considered a masterpiece, was written just after his own “profound spiritual awakening” and conversion experience.
While lying on his deathbed, Ivan ruminated about the reality that his entire life was superficial and self-serving as he profoundly stated, “Maybe I didn’t live as I should have done.” At the end, he posited a question that Tolstoy must have pondered, “What if I really have been wrong in the way I’ve lived my whole life, my conscious life?”
And don’t look to me anymore (like you ever did) to give you a formula or a checklist to send you on your way to sainthood. But, I will tell you this: You cannot love and serve others (which is our greatest calling) until you are able to love yourself. And you can’t love yourself by means of any of the myriad self-help books on the market. And…no…sorry, there’s not a pill for that either.
We are so used to being in a world that is loud and demanding of our attention. We even busy ourselves filling in uncomfortably quiet places.
Socrates claimed the unexamined life is not worth living. “To live deep and suck out all the marrow” as Thoreau put it.
If we would just stop talking and LISTEN to the lessons life is trying to teach us! Geeeezzzzz, we’re SO BAD at listening.
The expression, “Life is short” is a yawner for most of us until it becomes a reality. My reality came a few months ago when I found out my husband had died in his sleep. Now it’s real for me!
