What Makes You Come Alive?
A Conversation about Healing and Life
(Sometimes the story is simply the conversation my head is having. Ever had that? This entry is one of those - a chance encounter between a couple parts of me, complete with an implication that feels timely for all of us. Enjoy.)
What is healing?
Better.
Better than what?
Than now.
How would you know better is happening?
Less pain.
How do you measure less pain?
You feel it.
Do you feel like you’ve had less pain than last week?
I think so. But it’s still there.
How do you know when you are completely healed?
No pain.
What then?
Then I’m fine.
Fine for what?
Well, life.
What’s life?
Healed is one thing.
Alive is another.
Healing is necessary. Painful. Critical.
And also, Healed is not the goal.
The goal is Alive.1
The goal is…
Creativity.
Generosity.
Presence.
Courage.
Curiosity.
Connection.
Community.
The goal is a kind of limber, free humanity that emerges in the pain, through the pain, and beyond the pain, scars and all.
Aliveness arrives in fits and starts on the healing journey.
And sometimes it unfurls stunning displays so wonderous it seems healing is entirely a thing of the past.
It’s not.
The muted aches, visible scars, and unpredictable tears are lingering proof that no matter how far we journey, the need for healing abides - or eventually reemerges in a new way.
But…
Those moments of profound Aliveness are a reminder that the end game is not…
Fine.
Painless.
Or even Healed.
It’s Alive.
(Studio Be New Orleans - photo taken last weekend)
For and with Others.
And for Purposes greater than ourselves.
When was the last time you saw a…
Person Alive?
People Alive?
What did it…
Sound like?
Smell like?
Look like?
Taste like?
Feel like?
And maybe most importantly… when were you last Alive?
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come Alive. Because what the world needs are people who have come Alive.
- Howard Thurman
What brings that Aliveness out in you?
Where do you discover it most regularly? Most fully?
And who in your midst would be greatly served by your Aliveness?
—
Official video footage from the Small Stories about Big Things book launch - enjoy!
When the Bible speaks of the future hope of the world, it talks about how the leaves of the tree are for healing: “And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2b). A beautiful, powerful, and needful truth.
And also, those same trees do so much more than healing: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month” (Revelation 22:2a) and “the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)
There is Healing - and there is Alive.
I’m still thinking about this. Why is it so hard to know what the answer of what causes one to come alive?
Thoughtful stuff here, my friend.