Most Alive?

By Reverend Doug Kraft, July 2010

The last time Erika, my wife, borrowed my camera, it fell apart in her hands. Not her fault – it was an old camera. She got me another for my birthday – one with a stronger zoom and higher resolution. It was also more compact so I could slip into my pocket on walks along the river. In an unexpected way it’s opened up a sub-universe I’ve overlooked.

For example, here is a picture of thistle going to seed. I feel the delight of an explorer happening upon a strange and beautiful alien planet.

This leads me to a religious question: When do you feel most alive? When does your body tingle? Your imagination expand? Your heart flow with kindness? Your intellect fill with enthusiasm? Your mood become serene?

The most effective religious guide is this question: When do you feel most alive?

Too many people suppose religion’s function is to give us information: What happens when we die? Is there a God? Why does anything exist? How come good people get hurt? Too many people define religion as a set of answers to life’s mysteries. But good scientists and saints remind us that answers to such questions are at best temporary and at worst idolatrous, pretentious or boring. Real life is alive and changing.

As one who suffered from depression for the first forty years of my life, I can attest that feeling dead inside is a lot worse than feeling sad or upset.

Religion’s task is not to give us certain answers to life’s uncertainties. It is to help us engage creatively, peacefully and even joyfully in problems we cannot solve or realities we cannot easily explain: grief, mortality, cruelty, injustice, despair.

In our congregation, every Sunday morning we remind ourselves of the values that help us engage religiously: openness and curiosity, love and courage.

So as you move into the summer months, I hope you will engage religiously. This is to say, as you make plans for family trips or early morning walks before work or anything in between, that you ask, “When do I feel most alive?” and let this guide you. This might come from a high-energy leap into a lake. Or a peaceful twilight breeze. Or taking a few pictures in the woods. Or leaving a flower for a friend on her birthday. But you know the feeling.

The more we engage this way, the more alive we feel, and the more prepared we are to engage things we can’t prepare for.

Enjoy the summer.

Doug