*Brian Wilcox. 'Androscoggin River Series no. 11'.
Life is not a survival Life is adventure Life is celebration
Some persons wake up to Life, often by a crisis. Some appear to have been born fully awake to Life, and so never seem to need an awakening: these would be few. Others are born asleep, exist asleep, and die asleep, never having been awakened to the Beauty of this miracle called Life.
* * *
Life is not about a duration of moments that is a sequence we call time
Life is timeless Here, Now
Where does Life begin - Nowhere Where does Life end - Nowhere
When is Life - Now Not everlasting, but eternal
There is no waiting for Life Life already, always Is prior to your awakening to Life
To wake up to the Beauty of your life, our life, ourselves ... Yay!
* * *
The funeral was just beginning, all somber, as usual for funerals where I was born and raised. Amid this somberness, a little voice, and loud, cried out, apparently not thinking being somber was fitting for the occasion. The cry - "Yay!" I don't know if anyone else saw how appropriate that "Yay!" was at a service of Resurrection, worship celebrating a life and Life.
I had come to call, in my offering these worship meetings as a pastor and, later, chaplain, Celebration of Life. Clearly the preacher for this meeting did not have the same view of death as I did, the same approach to honoring the deceased and providing comfort to all present. Rather, he, being a fundamentalist Christian, talked about hell and how hot it would be, and how if anyone present did not accept Jesus, she or he would go to hell.
After the funeral I reflected on the child's exclamation "Yay!" I realized that was the best message that day and the most appropriate by far.
So, with the child, I celebrate a wonderful Life, and a wonderful World, a world filled with wonderful beings, and I affirm a wonderful Hope: "Yay!"
* * *
This "Yay!" is not merely an excitement, as though we can remain in an emotional state of elation always. This "Yay!" arises from deeper than all our changing feelings, our feelings being touched by time. If we live from the withinness where "Yay!" lives untouched by time, then, even when we do not feel elation, or even gratitude, we will still live in and from the "Yay!", the "Yay!" living through us and offering itself to the world. See, this "Yay!" arises from the joy that is even before happiness comes. This "Yay!" is the "Yay!" of Love.
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