Living vs Being Alive

The past few days I have been thinking about how well I have been able to live my life in the past 3 or 4 weeks.  I texted my sister during a mission trip two weeks ago that for the first time in many, many months I was in my element.  By that I mean I was doing the work I love to do, with the people I love to work with and in the places  I most love to work.  

For nearly 18 months I have been going to doctors, getting stuck by needles, reviewing graphs of my biological statistics and all in all living the life of a patient.  It makes sense of course that I would do that. After all I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in January of 2016.  I have had big sections of my body removed, had my digestive roadway re-mapped and taken enough drugs to kill an elephant (please refrain from making comparisons).  And yet despite that, I still wake up every morning with my life in tow.  Things are fine, the new pipes are working and I'm able to be fully functional at work and at home.

Yet having a life, being alive, is not the same as living..  Life is a noun.  It's a thing, it is measurable in length.  It has definition.  My life started on September 8, 1957.  My life will end on, .... well I'm not sure yet.  Of course we don't know, but someday our relatives surely will.  

To live is a verb.  I live my life.  Ok I get it, everyone lives their lives.  However the quality of your life is determined by how well you live it.  Get it?  I'm not sure I did until recently.  I have sat around the past 18 months more than happy just to be alive.  I have had the opportunity to catch up with old friends,several of the men and women I have mentored and family near and far.  This was in many ways a celebration of the life I have lived.    And while having a  "This is your life" experience was fun, it wasn't what I would call living my life.  I wasn't moving the needle forward, more like looking over my shoulder at the past.  

And so with that in mind I set out to "return to planet Earth" in June and plan the kinds of things I love to do.  Living my life out loud.  Screaming to the world I'm here, I matter, I love living this life. First on the agenda was family.  I picked up one of my favorite cousins, Brandon, who lives in Outer Mongolia, (northwestern Pennsylvania, same thing) and headed to God's Country, Pinehurst North Carolina for a nephew's wedding.  Glamorous, beautiful, overwhelming, Pinehurst #2 lived up to it's name.  The Bride and the Groom were special too.  But more that anything spending a few days with FAMILY in a resort was a fabulous start to my adventure.  My only regret was I didn't play the course.  I'm in no shape to play that tough a course YET.  Check LOVE off my living chart as these days were packed with just that. 

Next was our church mission trip.  I believe this is my 8th trip and the first to Virginia Beach.  There was a major hurricane there a few months ago and several families are waiting for help.  It will be 5 years before all the families are served.  My group worked with two families on the same block, both who had two feet of water in their homes.  We remind our mission trippers annually that the work is important but the relationships we make are the most important.  Never has this been more evident than one of the women we served on this trip.  

Miss Joyce has a grandson in his 20's with cerebral palsy.  In March, her son who had served in the military and been an FBI agent for more than 30 years was murdered and left in his backyard for his family to find.  Then the week before we arrived her husband of 55 years passed away.  There was work to do at her home, but we were sent there unknowingly because she needed  a distraction from her life.  She too needed a reason to live her life.  Our smiles and faith and laughter helped her through a very tough week.  God does work in mysterious ways.  Check LIVING YOUR FAITH off the check list.  

I came home for all of two days and then headed to facilitate leadership training at Butler University for my fraternity.  I have always loved to facilitate leadership programs.  I have been in two since my surgery but none as long or intense as this one.  The first two were 6 hour programs.  This was a 5 day workshop, the most demanding commitment I have made in 18 months.  It was challenging, engaging, enlightening and by far the single best retreat I have ever participated in.  I was totally exhausted after the week, so much so I nearly fell asleep on the drive home, at 11 AM in the morning. 

I had plenty of sleep, I just invested so much emotion that I was beat.  But the connections I made to the students I think will be life changing for a few.  This seminar asked these students to walk away with a plan for starting their legacies.  Heady stuff for an 18 or 19 year old.  But so incredibly relevant in today's world.  Now check GIVING BACK TO THE PEOPLE AND THINGS YOU LOVE off the list. 

Yesterday was my first day with nothing other than church on my calendar.  I slept all day.  You see really living your life can be exhausting.  It's the kind of tired that makes me know that I'm alive.  What's good for the body is good for the soul.