In Love With Being Alive

In Love With Being Alive

I love life. There really is nothing like experiencing a perfect day, hour or minute. I know life can’t be bliss every moment, but it really is worth those times we get to feel that all is right with ourselves, the world, and the universe.

There are some that stand out in my mind as I contemplate the times I really felt at one with the universe. The birth of my daughters are moments I will never forget, and welcoming them into this world was extraordinary. Running a marathon may seem like a strange way to experience the bliss of the universe, but it really is an amazing experience. Walking up a mountain and admiring the beauty of nature is another way. When the day is not going so well, it may be time to reflect back on the best of times.

Having daughters may be much easier than having sons, but there’s a tremendous amount of worry that comes with female offspring. Maybe because fathers were once young men, and they are familiar with the thought patterns and habits of the boys in the world. Let’s just say it’s not all purity and light. Now that my daughters are in their twenties, I feel much more comfortable with their ability to deal with the world. Sadly, they seem to grow up way too fast, and while we try to enjoy them while they are growing up, it all happens much too fast. We don’t really seem to understand they won’t stay young forever. But that doesn’t stop us from reflecting back and remembering how sweet it is to see your children mature into adulthood.

Running three marathons may seem a strange way to celebrate the bounty of the universe, but after 26.2 grueling miles, your mind has overcome the complaints of your body and you are sure you can do anything you try to do. It is a life affirming action, and the number of people who are participating in marathons grew 11 percent last year. The finishing time for runners is slower, which show an expansion in the sport for those running for the experience, and not necessarily to win the race. They want to see what they are made of, if they can accomplish something most other people consider crazy. Over a million people finished marathons last year, and the other road races showed growth as well. The average number of people finishing each race was over 4000 people.

Think about that number. Here are 4000 people all trying to do the same thing. They encourage each other as they run along, and the support staff all along the way cheer them on, too. It really is like a giant party celebrating just what the human body can accomplish. When it’s your body which has run 26.2 miles, it can be quite a celebration indeed.

But I really love what I experience when I am in nature. It could be just digging in the dirt in my yard and planting another seedling, hoping it will grow and flourish. I was even insane enough one summer to actually climb the mountain behind my house instead of just looking at it and wondering what it was really like up there. I didn’t use the right shoes; I didn’t train correctly for it; it didn’t take enough water with me; so it’s amazing I survived to tell the story. But on the way up the mountain I found a penny left by someone else two-thirds of the way to the top. I walked by a swarm of bumblebees, who weren’t afraid of me, so I wasn’t afraid of them, and they walked on my hands and arm, then flew away. I saw a field full of wild flowers and was probably the only person that summer to walk through them. At the top of the mountain, six thousand feet from where I started; I saw the massive trees which looked like twigs from the valley floor. They had been burned, or had become diseased, and had died.

But here they were at the top of the mountain, defying gravity and age to pull them down. When I look at them from the valley now, I know I’m not looking at small sticks on a peak. I’ve stood next to them and wondered just what they had seen happening down in the valley floor as we inhabited and once barren desert valley and made it bloom.

Perhaps lightning had struck these mighty giants. But they still stand today as a witness of the incredible grandeur of what this world really is. If we can only look up from our daily trudge, we might be able to see the splendor of the universe, and our place in it.

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