Live Your Life Fully Alive

[Delivered at Unity Church of Practical Christianity in Grand Rapids.]

Before I begin I want to thank Marty Lovse for asking me to speak here today. And I especially want to thank you all for showing up (and not sleeping in). I have an affinity for Unity churches. My theology and yours is pretty much the same, I think. We like a lot of the same people. Jesus, of course. And also Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Neal Donald Walsch, Eckhart Tolle. So I’m honored to speak to you today.

I heard a guest minister preach one time. Before she began she told the congregation: Let us agree on one thing, when I am through speaking today, you will not applaud. What? I thought: Well that’s kind of presumptuous, isn’t it? I would like to change what she said just slightly. Let us agree on one thing, when I am through speaking today, you will not boo (you know, unless you absolutely have to).

I’ve never preached a sermon at the suggestion of a parishioner. Not because I don’t value and listen to what parishioners want me to say, but because no one has ever asked me to preach a sermon on a particular topic. Until recently. I concluded a sermon a couple months ago basically by quoting St. Irenaeus, who said that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” I said that you are to live your life fully alive. That was pretty much the end of the sermon. Then afterwards a couple of people said, “What do you mean: live your life fully alive? Why don’t you preach a sermon about that?” OK. So, that’s what this is today. I think there are seven steps to take to live your life fully alive. Awareness. Gratitude. Truth. Compassion. Justice. Joy. Peace. Let me explain.

When I was seven years old or so, I remember being in my front yard all by myself, but then all of a sudden not feeling alone. I looked around, but there was nobody or nothing that I could see; just me and our tree in our front yard. What was that I felt? Was it the presence of God? Was it the presence of Jesus? Was it the presence of the Holy Spirit? I don’t know. Maybe it was that for the first time in my life I was conscious – I was aware of my self, of being a part of creation. I think the first step to take to live your life fully alive is to seek awareness. We can seek awareness in many different ways. The easiest way I’ve heard of to seek awareness is to simply breathe. When people say, “Take a breath,” I think what they mean is: be conscious, be aware of who you are and what you’re saying and what you’re doing. Simply breathe. Another way they say to seek awareness is to meditate. I try to meditate everyday. I don’t always do it, but I try, usually just to clear my mind of all thoughts and just be. Another way they say to seek awareness is to exercise or go for a walk in nature. I try to do that everyday. I don’t always make it, but I try. I don’t think you can live you’re your life fully alive without taking the first step: seek awareness.

Meister Eckhardt, a 13th century Christian mystic, said, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘Thank you,’ that is enough.” I think the second step to take to live your life fully alive is to express gratitude. I think it goes hand in hand with being aware. Once you’re aware, of yourself and the world, you’ll want to express gratitude – for life, for creation. Now I know there are people who like to think they’re a “self-made man” or a “self-made woman,” that everything that they have, they got from their own effort. But we didn’t create ourselves. We didn’t create the ground we walk on. We didn’t create the air that we breathe. We at least should express gratitude for those. To God, to the universe, to whatever your belief system tells you. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without taking the second step: express gratitude.

Gandhi is one of my spiritual heroes. Gandhi says, “God is truth.” I think the third step to take to live your life fully alive is to pursue truth. Now I realize that there are some religious people, many Christians unfortunately, who are afraid of the truth. They’re afraid of what the truth will do to their belief system. They don’t want to see the truth in evolution because they’re afraid that that means they’re calling God or the Bible a liar in the story of creation. They can’t wrap their minds around the possibility that God created evolution. It’s like the Jack Nicholson character says in “A Few Good Men,” “You can’t handle the truth.” They can’t handle the truth, so they pretend that the world is 10,000 years old, rather than billions of years old, which scientists say it is. I don’t think that you can live your life fully alive without taking the third step: pursue truth.

The Dalai Lama says, “Love and compassion are not luxuries, they are necessities. Without them humankind cannot survive.” I think the fourth step to take to live your life fully alive is to act compassionately. Love and compassion are synonymous, at least the way I use them and the way the Dalai Lama uses them. Compassion, unconditional love, is the feeling we have for our loved ones, and it’s also the feeling some people have for complete strangers. That’s why they feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked. We all ought to feel that way. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without taking the fourth step: act compassionately.

The Hebrew prophet Amos said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” I think the fifth step to take to live your life fully alive is to do justice. When we act compassionately, we help the poor. When we do justice, we try to eliminate poverty. Archbishop Dom Helder Camarra of Brazil said once, “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked, ‘Why are there poor?’ they called me a communist.” It’s asking, “Why are there poor?” that justice demands. It’s picketing for peace in the world. It’s demanding healthcare for the 30 or 40 million Americans who don’t have it. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without taking the fifth step: do justice.

One of my favorite Christmas carols is, “Joy To The World.” “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King.” Ironically, one of my favorite songs is also entitled, “Joy To The World,” by Three Dog Night. “Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.” I think the sixth step to take to live your life fully alive is to experience joy. Whatever it is that brings you joy - being with loved ones, playing cards with friends, climbing Mount Everest - do that. If your job doesn’t bring you joy, find a job that does. Or, if that’s not possible, find some creative endeavor – painting, sculpting, writing – that does bring you joy. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without taking the sixth step: experience joy.

One of my favorite verses in the Christian New Testament is found in Luke chapter 2, verse 14. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward all.” I think the seventh and final step to take to live your life fully alive is to achieve peace. The peace I’m talking about here is inner peace, the peace that passes understanding, at least as much as we can achieve that kind of peace this side of the rainbow. And I think that we achieve peace when we achieve those other six steps - seek awareness, express gratitude, pursue truth, act compassionately, do justice and experience joy – I think that’s when we can achieve peace, at least as much as is humanly possible. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without taking the seventh step: achieve peace.

Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” I think Jesus was all about teaching people to: live your life fully alive. He liked a good party. He liked to eat and drink with friends, so much so that they called him a “glutton and a drunkard.” I don’t think he was a glutton and a drunkard, I just think he liked a good wedding reception. He liked a good glass of wine every now and then. Now I know there are people who can’t drink a glass of wine because they’re alcoholics or can’t eat what they’d like because of cholesterol or they refuse some food or drink for spiritual reasons. That’s fine. But I hope that people who can eat and drink, do so. I think to live your life fully alive is to make the most of life whenever you can: eat, drink and be merry – in moderation.

Baha’u’llah, who founded the Baha’i faith, says that, “we should live in the rose garden of the spirit.” I hope that I’ve made it clear (if I haven’t, let me do so now) that when I say: live your life fully alive, I’m talking about life in the spirit; that we are more spiritual beings with bodies than we are bodily beings with spirits. By spiritual (and I don’t always like that word, because it’s so nebulous) but by spiritual I mean whatever it is you do to: live your life fully alive, living out of your whole brain, your left brain and your right brain, your intellectual side and your emotional side, thinking and feeling at the same time. That’s how I think you live your life fully alive.

Who would you say lives their life fully alive? At the risk of stating the obvious, I think that one person who lives their life fully alive is…OPRAH WINFREY! Not because she’s worth a billion dollars or more. Not because she has a talk show every day. Not because she publishes a monthly magazine. Not because she’s produced plays and movies and won an Academy Award for the first movie she ever acted in. I think she lives her life fully alive because she seems to me to be spiritually grounded. I think she is full of the spirit and that helps her to live her life fully alive. I think that’s how she can do all the things she does. So I think Oprah Winfrey would be a person who shows how to: live your life fully alive.

I was reading a story a week or two ago about a popular African American Gospel singer: Tone’x (toe-nay) I think is how you pronounce it. He’s 34 years old. He was married for four years. He had all kinds of singing engagements lined up at churches and religious conventions. Then, I think to live his life fully alive, to live in truth, he came out of the closet. He admitted, in so many words, that he’s gay. Immediately, all his singing engagements, at churches and religious conventions, cancelled. Not everyone wants everybody else to live their life fully alive. Some people want other people to live their life in the closet, to live a lie, to live their life half-dead. But that’s no way to live. Tone’x, the gospel singer, finally realized that. I hope you realize that too. To live your life fully alive you have to be who you truly are.

I was listening to the radio recently and I came across Dave Ramsey, the financial guru. He tells people to live life debt-free. He tells people to “Live like no one else so that some day you can live like no one else.” He was addressing people’s fear about the future of the economy. He says, “I’m not afraid of the future. My house is paid for, my car is paid for, I have some money in the bank (I suspect he has millions in the bank.), so I’m not afraid and I don’t think we should live in fear. We should live in abundance.” He said, “Wouldn’t it be great to go out to dinner and leave the waitress a $100 tip? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to coffee and put a $50 bill under your coffee cup for the waitress?” (I imagine that every waitress in the country listens to Dave Ramsey.) Dave Ramsey is talking about how to live your life fully alive, which I think we’re meant to do. I think we can do that - by seeking awareness, expressing gratitude, pursuing truth, acting compassionately, doing justice, experiencing joy and achieving peace. If you do all that, I think you will: live your life fully alive.