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| Photo: S. Nancy Bauer |
“What exactly is
LIFE?”
“What are you asking
me? Of course I know what LIFE is?”
“So is LIFE the same
for me sitting here in my small room or you in a family home or on a yacht or
in a hovel? What really is LIFE?”
Frederich Buechner
encourages us to listen to our life and
defines life as “being WITH.” So is it the icon on my wall that I am with? the books gathering dust on my desk? the children you may have created? the clock ticking away next to the land
telephone and the stereo? or is LIFE the wide screen TV or the fragrances
wafting from the kitchen stove? Or perhaps I
am with the bouquet of roses on the
mantel or the sweet little kitten asking for food or the five letters in
this morning’s mail asking for funds to serve a
worthy cause.
YES, all of these are
LIFE, my LIFE, part of the mystery we
call LIFE because that is one way we can distinguish being alive from being
dead. “LIFE is being with,” says Buechner,
“all of this is in it with
us. We’re all in it
together. Life is it. Life is with.”
He goes on to tell of a learned lecturer and theologian who, after
giving his thoughts on the topic of miracles,
was asked by one of his audience to give a specific
example of one such miracle. His answer was: “There is only one
miracle. It is LIFE.” Then he asked a series of probing questions:
- Have
you wept at anything during the last year?
- Has your heart beat faster at the
sight of young beauty?
- Have you thought seriously of the fact
that someday you are going to die?
- More often than not, do you really
listen when people are speaking to you instead of just waiting for
your turn to speak?
- Is there anybody you know in whose
place you would volunteer to be if you had to suffer in doing so?
If your answer to all
or most of these questions is NO, the chances are that you’re dead.”
WOW! “LIFE is with. We’re all in it together or it in us. Life is it. Life is with.
. . “
And God, I ask
myself? Yes, God is with us, no matter what!
Can we be with one
another and with all else that is?
That’s the bigger question.
Renée Domeier, OSB
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