LIFE

The thing that keeps grabbing me... the reality that keeps reaching out to claim me is LIFE.

Here I am in Madison Square Park, near the north edge looking downtown, the top of the Flat Iron Building poking out from behind the trees in front of me... rollerbladers zipping by, young girls with feet dangling in the water of the pool, lamp-posts lying quietly in wait for the sun to set, pigeons eyeing me with demanding eyes, the sounds of children laughing in the playground to my left, a young couple sitting at a cafe table at the edge of the pool reading, occaisionally to each other, people in suits, people in shorts, beautiful people of all shapes and sizes and hues--LIFE!

[Even as I write this across my path comes an older, gay man, head shaved with a Franciscan beard, skinny legs and less skinny belly, in black tennis shoes (no socks), black jean shorts, a black t-shirt with a faded logo I can't read and black leather-boy suspenders with chrome studs, with great pride and affection leading a beautiful grey medium haired cat on a leash... perfect! And across the pool, a young woman, blond, in a sun dress, legs shining white in the sunlight, surveys the scene with some intensity. He is alive... she is alive--and God is glorified in their living...]

And I rejoice in this gift of God... I rejoice in this many splendored world that God has created... I give thanks for it...

And as I become convinced that THIS... recognizing it, pointing it out, helping others to see it, blessing it... is what the Christian life is about... I wonder if I'm missing something essential.

Is it also the Church's job to point out how creation falls short of LIFE? How we, in countless ways, work against the Life of the World (see A. Schmemann)? How even the LIFE in the scene I describe there is so much working against that same LIFE? What is our role? Social justice is such a small thing next to this glorious vision of life. But so might pastoral care seem and I am sure that's part of the Church's mission.

What is our role here? Whatever it is, though it may be more, it is certainly not less than recognizing God as the source of this rich, abundant LIFE... and giving thanks to God for it.