Читать книгу How To Be Here - Rob Bell - Страница 11

I once visited a man named John who was dying of cancer. I’d never met him before, but a mutual friend had asked me to see him at his house. He was lying in a hospital bed in his living room when I came in, his body frail and ravaged. And yet his eyes were clear and full of shimmering life. After we shook hands and I sat down, he told me,

People just don’t get it

as he smiled and then repeated,

People just don’t get it.

He said that phrase over and over and over again for the next hour, in between bursts of conversation. When I asked him what he meant by it, he said that people don’t understand how precious and incredible life is. He said he hadn’t understood this truth until he knew that it was being taken from him.

Because that’s how it works, doesn’t it?

Suffering and loss have this extraordinary capacity to alert and awaken us to the gift that life is.

You’re driving down the road arguing with someone you love about something stupid when a car almost runs you off the road—and suddenly your hearts are pounding as you turn to each other and say, That was close! And you aren’t arguing anymore.

You’re frustrated with your kid and then you hear about someone else’s kid being in the hospital, and when you get home you hold your kid extra close.

You go to a funeral and you sit there grieving the death of this person you loved but when you leave you realize that mixed in with your sadness is a strange sort of energy that comes from a renewed awareness that you’re here and this is your life and it’s good and it’s a sacred gift.

Why do we react in these ways? Because deep down we know that all we have is a gift.

Jesus taught his disciples a prayer that begins,

Our father, who’s in heaven …

… which is another way of saying,

Begin your prayers—begin your day—by acknowledging that your life is a gift and this gift flows from a source. This source is responsible for the air in your lungs, the blood that courses through your veins, and the vitality that surges through you and everything around you.

… which is another way of saying,

Begin whatever you’re doing by remembering that you are here and you have been given a gift.

The blinking line reminds you that whatever has happened to you, whatever has come your way that you didn’t want, whatever you have been through, you have today, you have this moment, you have a life that you get to create. The universe is unfinished, and God is looking for partners in the ongoing creation of the world.