Being Alive

After my second trip to El Salvador I wrote on this blog about a “something” that Salvadorans seem to have that I don’t.  While in El Salvador I feel this something and it stays with me for a while once I get home but it far too quickly dissipates.  It is this “something” that makes me feel alive, full of joy, happiness, and hope.

This “something” is something that I have thought about a lot and I have written about (on this blog and in my personal writing).  Every once in a while I have an insight about this “something” or I read a book or article that makes think about this “something” or I have a conversation with someone that helps me get closer to figuring out what that “something” is.  Yet, I still feel like I am far from understanding this “something”.  Maybe it’s a good thing that I have to keep searching for and refining an understanding of this something, but it is a little frustrating.

More and more I’m thinking that this “something” has to do with being alive.  When I say being alive I don’t just mean being alive in the sense that a person is breathing and his or her heart is beating.  No, I mean being alive in the fullest sense.

It has to do with being alive in Christ, living as Christ has asked and required us to live. 

What exactly does it mean to be alive in Christ? 

Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

1 John 3:16, 18 lays it out even clearer: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

To be truly alive means to live a life of sacrifice and love.  Jesus lived the perfect life of love and sacrificed everything he had for everyone who has or ever will live.  And we are supposed to follow Jesus’ example.

When I’m in El Salvador I experience this sense of being alive because I am among Salvadorans who are so much better than I am at living, at living a life of sacrifice and love.  Salvadorans are just really good at living selfless lives and loving everyone.  It’s evident in the way they go about their day to day life meeting the needs of other people when their own needs are often barely met.  It’s evident in the loving and generous way they care for complete strangers and foreigners who come to visit.  It’s evident in their stories from their experiences during the civil war in El Salvador- even in times of great tragedy and loss, so many Salvadorans continued to give up so much to work for a better world.  Salvadorans don’t just sit around and talk about the one time they made a sacrifice for someone else.  My Salvadoran friends daily live a life of sacrifice.  They love in action. 

And during the time I spend with Salvadorans, I understand what it means to be alive in the fullest sense.  I see people loving with reckless abandon.  I watch people live with hope.  I experience what it means to live with joy.  And I absorb the hope, love, and joy of the Salvadorans.    

So, then this question remains: how can I continue to feel that “something” when I’m not in El Salvador?  It has to be possible, right???

I’ve got some ideas on the answer to this question, but you’ll have to wait until next week for the answer.