Another set of footprints…

“Next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart”

~ Edmund Burke

Life seems complicated enough when you have a million things to do– and a million things on your mind.

But is that what life is supposed to feel like? Seems like too many of us are all about doing and not about feeling. Feeling would seem too difficult to bear, and too harsh a reality.

So we don’t try to feel at all. We try to suppress any emotion we have too painful, or too unnerving. For something that really has nothing to do with feeling at all. Living just to “do” and not to “be” is a cold, brutal reality.

That’s was what my life was like, in the past years and sometimes today. Sometimes I try to escape from pain by working too hard, and doing too much. Cluttering up my life seems so much better than having to focus on my situations. If I could just do enough or have enough relationships or see enough projects come to fruition, then life will seem good.

But it never really is…

Honestly sometimes we need life to be… well life. Life isn’t perfect. Yes, I know. A stupid thing to say because anyone with a normal sense of reality knows this. It doesn’t have to be spoken out loud. It doesn’t have to be a reminder. Or does it? We can’t life inside a vacuum. Life can’t be all about us. Why would we want it?

Inside all of us we long to, well belong. To be accepted. To be loved and to love. Conditions common to human existence must be expressed most. And it seems like it isn’t in the most important places. Our schools, jobs, homes, and well — the church. These places lose sense of normalcy for a sense of pride. A pride in education, a pride in status, a pride in accumulation, and a pride in dogma. For these places, which long to breed and foster community and relationships; it turns out it doesn’t.

Life doesn’t have to be hum-drum. Life can, and is, so much more.

Life is another set of footprints…

When we truly understand that life isn’t meant to be self-contained but shared, life gets a little sweeter. Even through tragedy, life shared by others allows us to gain strength and the courage to go on, even when we can’t go one more step.

I realized this recently…

When my brother had to have major surgery, I was devastated. I thought it was so unfair. “He’s so young?” “He has his whole life in front of him.” “Why him?” “Why any of us?”

Questions loomed my mind and to feel was not such a great prospect. I wanted to escape, to forget that all of this was going on. I wanted to crawl up in a ball and just “die.” But that’s not life, that’s not living. That’s giving up, that’s not what any of us should want.

We long to be passionate. We long to make a difference. We can’t escape our longings. They are hard-wired in the human condition, human consciousness. But living life outside of ourselves… Yes, that’s it. That’s a major fulfillment in our longings.

I was beginning to realize that my life really isn’t that significant when I see what others go through. And seeing my brother, seeing him with all the tubes, IVs, all the bags… the blood, antibiotics, IV fluid, seeing all of the pain and suffering he was going through. Through no fault of his own. That was too much…

I almost couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t handle seeing my brother like that. I couldn’t imagine the pain of my parents having to see their son… their youngest child, in so much suffering.

My mom and dad said if they could take it away from him, if they could trade places, they would do it in a heartbeat. And I knew deep down inside I would too.

That’s what life is about, it’s about walking along another’s journey. It’s about not turning away from the devastation around us. The earthquake in Haiti, in New Zealand, the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. All the wars and rumors of wars going on. The unrest in the Middle East. We can’t hide any longer. Thousands of children dying from hunger, thousands homeless, thousands killed in genocide, we can’t escape any more and pretend it’s not happening.

Because it is… it REALLY is.

This isn’t a joke, life isn’t a game. There are no do-overs, no mulligans, no second chances. You only get to live once, and then you die… then what?

Then you are faced with a decision you had back on earth. Was life about me, or was it about pouring myself out… living to make a difference.

So are you daring? Do you have the guts to live life in a greater sense of the word?

Believe me, the other set of footprints… it’s beautiful.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

~ Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30)