The Life That Really Is Life

I don’t know about you, but this week has been hard on my heart. Actually, the last several weeks have been. Or maybe it’s been months. I’m losing count. The cycles of outrage and despair have just all started to blur together. Every day it’s some new horrible headline about hurricanes or health care or hate speech.

But this past week felt especially hard to me with the news of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, a small group of us gathered outside here at church in solidarity with churches in Nevada and across the nation, to toll bells – one time for each life lost. First Baptist doesn’t have bells in our steeple, but we do have a full set of handbells. As I went through the bell cases to pick the right bell for the event, I went for the biggest bell, which plays the lowest note in the set. And when I picked it up, I thought it just didn’t seem big enough. I wanted something more substantial for what we were about to do.

But then the group of us gathered out there on the sidewalk at midday. And as students and others passed by, I began to ring the bell. One time for each life. Fifty-nine times. And within just a few rings I realized – that bell was so heavy. Each time I rang it, I felt the weight of it running up and down my arm. And down my back. Each time I brought it back up to ring another time, I felt this yearning just to stop, to lay it down, to be done. But I kept ringing. And when I was done, we all stood there together in silence. Then we prayed. And then we said goodbye and we went back to work or home or school.

The next day, my shoulder was sore and my elbow was sore and my forearm was sore. And the day after that, too. The truth is, I can still feel it. It has felt like a weight I have carried all week. Maybe you are carrying it, too.

But I’ve been carrying something else since Tuesday, too. As we stood out there on the side walk of East Washington, and tolled the bell, and remembered innocent lives lost, and said our prayers – we were so present to that moment, and to each other, and to God, and to life. We were a group of people who had stopped in the middle of a busy day just to reflect and pray, to mourn. None of us were multitasking. None of us were on screens. None of us were trying to get anything else done except just being right there, with each other. And when we were done, there were hugs, and there was eye contact, and there were deep breaths of a perfectly beautiful October afternoon. In the midst of a busy day, on the edge of a busy street, we stood together in hope and in holiness. And as I walked back to my office, I was struck by the startling juxtaposition of grief and gratitude, of anger and awe. So I’ve been carrying this, too – not just the pain, but these graced moments of tenderness and connection with other people. In other words, I’ve been carrying hope.

What has happened this week has reminded me all over again of the terrifying fragility of life – a fragility that is always, always, always there, even when we pretend otherwise. A fragility that can either break us with worry and with attempts at control, or make us take stock of what really matters, and then live like it.

In the apostle Paul’s little letter to his young disciple Timothy, he lays down some advice about living a life organized around what matters. He writes, “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content.”

Content. Can you imagine? Can you imagine living a contented life in a world like ours? Maybe you already do. Maybe you already are content. And if you are – you are rare, and becoming rarer all the time.

Content people don’t have to check their phones 72 times a day, do they? Content people don’t have to buy the newest gadgets or the cutest new clothes to feel good. Content people don’t have a fear of missing out. Content people don’t refresh the headlines every hour, or half hour, or quarter of an hour, while their blood pressure just keeps climbing.

We do not live in a culture that encourages contentment. Quite the opposite, actually. Our culture thrives on our anxiety – the addictive feedback loops of social media are part of an advertising economy built on exploiting our lack of contentment.[1] The less content we are, the more we will spend on their products, right? Our culture encourages us to do a lot of things and be a lot of things, but contentis not one of them. The word even sounds a little bit bland, a little bit boring.

And yet, isn’t there something in us that longs to be content? Isn’t there something in us that yearns to be centered, grounded, whole, at peace?

“There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment,” Paul writes. He goes on to say that we didn’t bring anything into this world, and we can’t take anything out of it. Since that is the case, then contentment consists not in having lots of things and holding onto lots of things, but in being satisfied with what we do have, who we are. It is enough.

Others have explained this teaching by noting that if you aren’t content with what you have, you wouldn’t be content with what you would like to have (Socrates). Or, as Immanuel Kant pointed out, we are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without. Or, as Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it, “He who is contented is rich.”

This of course is the opposite of how we usually think. “If I were richer, I would be content,” we believe. “If I just had more time to do what I would like to do, I would be content,” we think. “If I just had someone who could keep my house clean for me, I would be content.” “If I had a better job, if I had a girlfriend, if I had a child, I would be content.” “If we had different leaders, I would be content.” But the great teachers throughout history all agree that this is not the way contentment works. It is not the circumstances of our life that make us content. It is our contentment that creates our life.

For Paul, the source of contentment is God, who richly provides for us. The issue isn’t what we have, or how much, but our relationship to it, and how we use it – how we live with what we’ve got. Paul writes, “As for those who in this present age are rich, command them not … to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God… They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, ready to share,…. so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

“The life that really is life.” Isn’t that a great phrase? The other word the Bible has for that is “eternal life,” and if we think that is only about life after death, we are mistaken. “Eternal life” means now. This present moment. This very life we’re living. The one we’ve got. Life that isn’t threatened by death or fear or shame. Life that overcomes anxiety and anger and despair. Life that conquers death. Full life. Authentic life. “Life that really is life.”

The 1^st century Roman philosopher Seneca, in an essay entitled “On the Shortness of Life,” wrote, “The problem is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste so much of it… There is nothing the busy man is less busy with than living.”[2] There is nothing the busy person is less busy with than living. And we are so busy. We are so strained and stressed and burdened. And we are discontent.

God wants more for us than this. God wants better for us than this. God wants us to have the “life that really is life.” And we don’t even have to do anything to get it but to say yes to it. We don’t even have to work for it, we just have to realize we want it. We don’t even have to earn it, we just have to accept that it’s given. That God has loved us into life and that God’s love provides for us still. We have to stop trying so hard all the time to get ahead, or to get better, or to get right, or to get good, or to get on top of all the mess in our lives. To just stop trying so hard. And to just start saying “Yes,” to what really matters. Which is God. Which is the people God has given us. And the precious time God has given us. We had to start saying “Yes” to giving and receiving intentional, attentive love, in every way we can.

In the aftermath of Las Vegas and Puerto Rico, of Florida and Texas, it is so clear how quickly life can change, how fleeting our time is, how cruel the world can be, and how important it is to take hold of the life that really is life.

To do good.
Be generous.
Tell people you love them.
Be fierce and unafraid.
Be tender and gentle and forgiving, including with yourself.
To find your passion and pursue it.
To find your gift – and give it away.
To listen to children.
To respect others.
To honor the stranger.
To say your prayers.
To give your time to what matters, to who matters,
To give your energy to what matters, to who matters,
To give your money to what matters,
To give your heart to God.

Mary Oliver’s marvelous poem The Summer Day starts by asking, “Who made the world?”  As she details the many exquisite facets of creation, the answer is obvious.  God made it, and made our lives, and gave them, and everything we have, to us.  Pay attention to such gifted goodness, her poem beckons, and give yourself in return.  And then the poem ends like this:

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?[3]

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[1] See Paul Lewis, “’Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia,” The Guardian, 6 October 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia?CMP=share_btn_fb

[2] “On the Shortness of Life,” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated by Gareth D. Williams, https://archive.org/stream/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife/Seneca%20on%20the%20Shortness%20of%20Life_djvu.txt

[3] Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems, 1992,  https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html