How do you know you are living?

In Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Moses leaves the Israelites with these words as they prepare to go into the promised land without him.  Moses had led them through 40 years of faith, complaining, misunderstanding, and developing an identity.  As he looks into the land that he will never see he highlights the choice that is set before them.  You can choose life or you can choose death.  But how do you know which choice you made?  What does it look like to live?  As I thought about the ways that we can tell we are alive I thought about this movie I used to love, well I still do :), as a little girl.  In the movie this little girl, who doesn't know how to be jaded reminds a whole town about what it means to live!  Here's the clip that I thought is a great example of her ability to show others they were alive.

Polly Visits Miss Snow

As much as I believe that life is what you make it and that your attitude can make a huge difference...choosing life is not always easy.  Some times it means that we will feel more deeply the pain of loss, need to sacrifice our own desires for the betterment of the ones we love, or simply exist in the ambiguity of a middle way.  As a community it is an important question that we ask...how do we know that we are living?  What are the signs of health and vitality even as we are small and beginning?  What actions of the community will help us to continue to choose life and to embrace the opportunities for service in God's name?

It is my hope that we will journey together and challenge one another to bring together our spoken Christian values and our lived values...in my experience the more closely our values line up, the more coherent our message of the love of God for all.   So that we may live in the way of Christ who walked among and with us and continues to inspire our lives and our community!