One Life

How much does it matter? Just one life...

I think that in our exchange with the other, we see something about our own existence.

I have befriended a kind little old priest with a grand spirit with the name Giovanni Battista, one that he lives up to.

Though he is 60 years my senior, and spends most of his time in an electric wheelchair, he has the spunk and flavorful personality of a fig tree in September. I have tried spending time with him, as it is oh so valuable for both him and me. It is interesting, it is like a mutual choice to spend time together. I can't offer him much and neither he I, but what we offer each other is company, and there's something great of God in that.

He is a Benedictine Monk in the Monastery of the Basilica of St. Paul. Yesterday, we went for a little walk in the biblical gardens, picking figs of the trees and getting our ankles eaten alive by mosquitoes. When we sat down for a minute, and he recounted his vocational story to me, there was some sort of internal pause that allowed me to be [almost] completely present. As I listened to him explain in Italian, with a wispy voice, understanding about 60% of what he had to say – but all the important parts – I was able to really see him for who he was.

I saw a man, wrinkled, and much closer to death than I was, aged, yet mature, and saw that existence and value in his own life. I knew that his life, all that made him up, his body, his soul, and his experiences, would cease to exist on Earth in the same way for long, and that I would continue living on.

In that, I saw the beauty of the trees, and the value of each individual life – that I am not them, that I am not him, but that I have my own individual life. That we exist, as separate, but together, individually. I understood that we are cut from the same cloth, we share one Father, but still are unique and separate. There is a great mystery in this, and it leads to a great respect for all life – that things were created to be alive and exist together in harmony, not as all being one and having the same spirit, but by existing as individual parts, connected by one spirit, namely that one which is genealogical In understanding the other in this way, we can come to understand ourselves better. We can understand that we are individual, yet part of a family. We can understand the value of caring for the other and appreciating our own lives all the more. We can avoid material attachments, and take in and observe what really matters – the breath, the pulse, the gaze, the eyes, the connection, the spirit. These things teach and translate to us the true meaning of life.

I think it also shows a lot about God, our Father, and who He is as an artist, creating all these individual valuable lives and creations, with the intention of cohabitation and harmonious living such as that of a family, of self sacrifice, and fostering growth for future generations, of passing on wisdom and leaving pettiness behind, and of living in the moment, fully in yourself, as you are. This all leads to gratitude.

Each tree is loved by God. Each individual is loved by God all the more. How great a treasure that the mysteries of the interior can be revealed to us and teach us something more about God, the other, nature, and ourselves. Also, how great is it to know that each and every individual has a unique perspective, not replicable, that reveals something new and different. How little we are, and yet how intentionally created. How much are we part of a puzzle that all fits together when we allow ourselves to both give and receive, embracing every funky shape that makes us a part of the whole.

This is the mystery of God – a love that cannot be replicated, is ever old yet ever new, and exists for the moment with eyes on the future and a gratitude for lessons learned.