Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday September 14, 2010

I have noticed that many of the Hollywood types have learned to fake the "alive" look and will do anything to perpetuate the image. Eyes sparkle, smiles flash and even if you want to you can't pinch an inch. Everything is just so so. Yet the morning paper or evening news will lead with the headline story the Mr/Miss wonderful has given into to reality and ended their life, often a life that looked very good on camera, but was in fact a life of desperate despair.

Many millions have been earned through writing and talking a life with "meaning" yet a well known philosopher, though not a professing Christian touched on a deeper truth. Joseph Campbell said it this way:

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive."

"An experience of being alive." Wow.

Men and women often express that if they were in a "relationship" they would truly experience being alive. Why then do people who are "in a relationship" (Facebook term) drink or drug themselves into a stupor in order to cope with being among the living? Most suicides are committed by people in some kind of relationship. Being in love often, for a while, creates the euphoric feeling of being more alive than ever, yet one of the saddest truths ever expressed by a mere mortal pen is the line from Whittier's "Maude Muller" love story turned to a personal disaster due to cultural mores, "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these; 'It might have been.'" While true love may be a many splendored thing, it is more often a tragic epoch of inner misery.

Jesus is on record as to one of the reasons He came was to give His followers the reality of being truly alive. Certainly service to others in His name is part of the parcel, but we must learn to display the tattoo of a true member of His band by having a genuine love one to another and to love Him because He first loved us. Jesus told of the purpose on earth of Lucifer and contrasted this thief and liar with Himself by stating in John 10:10:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Christian, on that day when you look upon His face may you not think on Whittier's haunting phrase, "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these; 'It might have been.'"

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2010 Use with Credit

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