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Here We Go Again

In an academic world where I live, every year I get to watch the campus come alive.  Traditionally American campuses are quieter during the summer months.  Even if there is summer school and the normal spate of camps, etc., summer is not the same.  So I always am eager to see things begin to change.  It is almost as predictable as the changing of the leaves during autumn.

Like the changing of the leaves on the tree, I am never sure which day I will notice the change.  Yesterday it happened.  I arrived fairly early on campus and there is the usual calm.  I am one of the earlier ones to arrive on campus, so it is still very quiet.  I can park almost anywhere I want.  Sometimes the door to my building is still locked, so I fumble for my key.  Since I am in an old building---one more than a hundred years old---I am greeted with some creaks and familiar sounds that I never hear when it hums with students.

Later in the morning, I had to go out.  That’s when I first noticed it.  Some students were in front of one of the campus dorms to greet some folks who were beginning to arrive and move in.  “Wow, we’re going to get students again,” I thought!  As I drove nearer the Recreation Center, I noticed the place was a beehive of activity.  Young folks were going and coming.  It hit me that our football players were arriving.  And that’s no small bunch of students.  They soon will be followed by other sports’ teams, the band, specific groups of special students and before I know it, the campus will thrive again.

I love this time of the year, just like I love the fall season of changing leaves and weather that begins to portend the coming of the winter reality.  There is a vibrancy to both incoming students and oncoming winter.  Life has many qualities to it, but vibrancy is one of the most important to me.

Lurking in the word, vibrancy, is the idea of life itself.  Vibrancy means to pulsate with life, to be engaged actively, to be energized with some pizzazz.  The opposite of vibrancy is inactivity, sleepy, lazy, deadness, etc.  I would like to think that most people, if given a choice, would opt for vibrancy.  I know I would.

If we are vibrant, we are always ready to say, “here we go again!”  Vibrant people tend to be up for the task.  They usually are keen to get started.  They want to sustain good things.  Vibrant people can be very dedicated and disciplined people.  I know these student athletes, who are the first arrivals on campus, are just such vibrant people.  I sense a vibration---a buzz---just being around them.  It is as if there is energy pulsating from their very beings.

It would be easy to assume only the young and healthy can be vibrant.  When we get older, we could assume that we will begin to experience the maladies of getting older---slower, sometimes sicker.  We could assume, then, that we cannot be vibrant.  I disagree, however, with this assessment.

In the first place, I do not consider vibrancy always to be an issue of physicality.  By that I mean, we don’t have to be young or fully healthy to be vibrant.  Older people, disabled people, average people can all be vibrant.  At one level, I sincerely believe vibrancy is an attitude as much as it is physical energy.

And surely, we have to be “present” to be vibrant.  When I say that, I mean we cannot be living in the past or solely in the future and be vibrant.  Vibrancy is a present-tense mode of being.  Again, let’s go back to the meaning of vibrancy: engaged, active, energized.  For me these are also spiritual words.  In fact, I would go so far as to say anyone who is authentically spiritual will necessarily be vibrant.  To be authentically spiritual is to be energized.  That person will be engaged somehow in life.  And that person will be active.

I have always enjoyed knowing that the early Christian Church talked about the monks as spiritual athletes.  That is a good image for me.  My athletic days are mostly over.  And certainly any prowess in athletics---if there ever were---is long gone!  But I can be---and hope I am---a spiritual athlete.  I engage that image.

I don’t have to change clothes or put on special shoes to be a spiritual athlete.  I have to have a focus, a relationship with a cause (in my case a cause from God), and a commitment to work and play for that cause till we no longer can function.  My cause is to have meaning and purpose in my own life and to serve and minister in the world to make it a better place.

I know this is very general, but I have a specific context---my own playing field, so to speak---where I play out my authentic spiritual life.  Every day I can arrive at my place and effectively say, “here we go again.”  Put me in Coach.  Bless my day as I make my way.  Ad Gloria Dei---to the glory of God.

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