Connections

Staying Alive

“Aliveness is what we find way deep down inside, for a moment here, an interval there, those pulses that go on inside us all the time, in our homes, in our environment, and in the universe, the continuum from which we are so often isolated in our self-conscious kiosks, by habit and upbringing. The moment is truth, and so is the continuum.”

Anne Lamott (Almost Everything: Notes on Hope, p.32)

Aliveness, Anne Lamott declares, is sacred. The aliveness in other people and in ourselves is holy ground. In those moments when we connect with another person's aliveness, their spark of divine nature, we experience a widening of reality that Jesus referred to as “the kingdom of heaven.” We also make these connections with our pets—our beloved companions, who probably know us better than we know ourselves. They model connection by the unconditional nature of their attentiveness to us, something with which we humans fumble. We also find aliveness in the natural world, which wakes us up and delights us with its beauty and fecundity.

When we are able to go within and experience our own aliveness, we get a taste of eternity. We realize that the beating heart inside us will someday stop, but the essence of what makes us who we are will continue on. Aliveness is soul material, and therefore eternal. We can look back on our lives, especially if we are older, and track the moments when we feel most alive. They immediately jump to mind. In between all the moments of being awake, alive and connected, are more intervals when we are simply on autopilot. We retreat back into our “kiosks” of self-concern, step back into our fear bodies, and become aware of our faults and limitations; we become critical of ourselves and others.

The more aware we can become of what Anne Lamott calls the “continuum,” the more we can stay connected to our own aliveness. In doing so we will expand our experience of the sacred. That continuum extends beyond our linear world and our particular moment in time, and reaches into eternity to all the souls who have been part of our lives here and are now gone. Once they shed their physical bodies and all the self-centered concerns that go with being a human-being in the world, they are soul, and soul is love. We can tap into that love simply by asking. “Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives...” (Matt. 7:7-8)

I hope your aliveness is front and center today, and that you connect with the sacred in yourself and others.

                                                        In the Spirit,

                                                             Jane