Life (Easter #1)

There are 50 days in the Easter season.  Who’s up for an Easter word-a-day challenge?

Seriously, though it has been fun and a great discipline through Lent, I’m ready for a change-up.

But for today, the word is Life.

Fitting for Easter dontcha think?

Life.

What strikes me this Easter is the difference between life and life-like.  

With the rise of technology the line has become blurry.  Step into a cinema and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a movie without some form of CGI.  Drive a car or use a smart phone and you’ll encounter some sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.

We are increasingly immersed in that which mimics life, that which approximates life.  And there is the an important distinction   Almost alive is not the same as alive.  Life-like is not life.

And yet, I find myself settling for the approximate, for that which is less than.  Not just in my movie choices or in my mobile devices, but in other more personal ways.

I settle for a polite silence when I should offer an apology.

I settle for a quickly inhaled meal with a side of surface conversation when I need real connection and sharing with my family.

I settle for to-do lists and task reminders when I  committed to intimate friendship and mutual support with/from my wife.

There is a semblance of life in these pursuits.  Perhaps someone looking in from the outside may even confuse them with the real deal, but they are shallow, hollow and empty.  They are not the life Jesus makes possible through his resurrection.  No, that is real life.  That is the blood, sweat and tears life.  No polite computer voices.  No slick graphics.  Down and dirty life.  With real people spending real time together dealing with and hopefully celebrating the real stuff.

Babies who laugh and cry and want to be loved.

Teenagers who exert their independence, just like we did/do.

Parents who don’t get us and then do and then don’t, even as we do the same with them.

Crazy neighbors (sometimes, “call the police” crazy and sometimes, “that was the best party ever” crazy)

Jobs that can drive us to drink and drive us to display the best of ourselves.

Friends.  Bills.  Sickness.  Vacations.  Pets.  Death.  Frog song.  Roller coasters.  Stargazing.  Forest hikes.

You know?  The real stuff.

Technology can get close, but it will always be a bit off.  It cannot become as real or more real than life itself.  And so, those of us who are done settling for the imitation, we come back to Easter.

Easter, the day God said “Are you ready to truly live? Are you ready for your new life?”

The opportunities, the possibilities, stretch before us.  Happy Easter.  Let’s live the real life.

 

Life is better together,
Shawn