what makes a good life?
for difficult times, apocalyptic times, and more
a good life. everyone says it's a life where you must find purpose.
I'd like to think it is a life of not one purpose but purpose(s).
a good life is a life of trying and failing and trying and succeeding before I fail all over again.
a good life is a life that mirrors the sun, the way it rises before it sets and repeats the same cycle the next day
a life where I am confronted with irony over and over
a good life
is a life where I see seasons as teachers
trees stand bare before cherry blossoms
sprout before leaves turn green and yellow
before decay before something new births
over and over and over.
a good life is a life of complexity
a life that tolerates grief and change and
hurt and pain the same hand as it
experiences joy and love.
a good life is a life that contradicts.
a life that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t ask us to understand. a life where you can try
and try to rationalize and you still wont understand.
a good life is a life that mirrors the motions of prayer in the ways we bow down and submit at our lowest only to get up and start all over again. a good life, a successful life, is a life where we find purpose both in the mundane and the exhilarating. it is a life where we find not just one but many paths to God. A life well lived is a life where I try. I try and I try my hardest to make my community around me also try. a good life, a successful life, does not even need to look good, nor sound interesting, nor unique, nor special, to be good. a good life is a life where we are striving. It is a life of contraction and expansion a life where I know there are years that ask questions and other years that answer a good life is a life where I know I am here. I might be hurt but I am still here. I might grieve forever but I am still here. I exist. The leaves around me fall. The wind is subtle and it wrestles the trees but it is nearby. I exist and I exist with the world. I try and even when I fail I am still here. I try and yet even when I upset people I am still here. The wind and the breeze are reminders that I’m here the singing of the birds is a reminder I am here and the leaves that fall are all signs of God, messages of God, worshippers of God, reminding me I am here. a good life is a life where I look for signs. I look for signs because I know that God sends signs which some of us will deny. a good life is a life where I live knowing I am here. I embody the fact that I am here, and I live knowing that one day
I will not be here. a good life is a life where I accept that I don't have to do it alone. I know I am here to try and we are all here on a journey together to try. God is divine and God does not put anyone on this earth who cannot do it, God does not let anyone be here if they cannot do it, so our job is to believe and to try. a good life is a life where I try.
