Faith & Life Inspirational Message

With a title like this one, you might expect this to be a reflection by someone who has just survived a near-death experience.   It could be one who escaped from a nasty car accident or a near-miss airplane landing.   Lucky to be alive sounds like the relieved words of someone who stood in front of death’s door and turned around to walk away.   “Praise the Lord,” we expect to hear them mutter. But my reflections have nothing of the drama suggested in the first paragraph.   I have not had a near-death experience.   I have certainly thought about dying and being dead, as I suppose is natural for anyone my age.   I have fortunately never been in a nasty car accident.   I have had some scary enough (for me) plane takeoffs and landings, but nothing that was disastrous.   So I guess I have lived a fairly eventful, normal---maybe---boring life.             That does not mean I cannot feel lu...

Recently I have become aware again of something I probably have known for a long time.   Perhaps I have even known it my whole lifetime!   It is not a dramatic knowing, but it is healthy and can be healing.   What more can we ask?   Put simply, I became aware again of what I would call the simple soulfulness of quiet and aloneness.   I can put more fancy spiritual terminology to this, but the simplicity is sufficient for now. I like to be engaged in my work.   I like being with people.   I know my life still borders on the too-busy end of the spectrum.   Even though I am getting older, I wonder whether I am any wiser?   I know more than I execute.   Ignorance often is not the problem.   I know enough to grow spiritually, but frequently my stupidity blunts the process.   So I find myself in the same place year after year.   It is not a disaster, but there is a mountain yet to climb.   I still like the metaphor of ...