What Is Life?

We live it every day . . . this thing we call life . . . but what is it really? Recently, I was reading a devotional book that posed a number of questions. The questions were simple enough but in some cases I really didn't know how to answer them. How could that be?! They were questions about me? How could I not articulate a description of my own life?

What is it that makes me tick? What makes me cry? What makes me laugh? What opens my heart? What happens when my heart is open? How am I essential? How am I valuable? What is my purpose?

The questions went further and more deeply to query: What is important in life? What is sacred and holy in life? Where does life come from? What makes me want to be alive? What is life?

As I stopped to really answer the questions, I realized that the things that make me tick are rooted in relationship with God and with others. My energy comes in being connected to other people in deep places--those places where people are willing to share their deepest pains and joys. It is the laughter of others that makes me laugh and the lack of connection with others that makes me cry. Again and again my answers came back to relationship. It is relationship for which I long, relationship that God has given us in each other and it seems to me that life wouldn't be life without the gift of relationship.

Some years ago while living in upstate New York, I met a man named Albert. I met him in a curious way. I had been living with a family there and happened to come to the house for a quick bite of lunch from work that day. No one else was home but when I walked in the door there was this large, older man with long white hair and beard waiting in the kitchen. I asked who he was and why he was there and he informed me that he was a hermit who came out of the woods once a year and visited this family and then returned to his life.

Even Albert needed a bit of relationship. Even Albert needed that great gift of life. I don't know how you define life for yourselves, but I hope whatever you find in its definition offers you all of the richness of relationship.

On this Thanksgiving week, know that I am thankful for the various relationships we share and for the ways that you breathe life into me!