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.
