THEIR SPIRITS LIVE ON

     Having stood at the grave of Robert Frost in an old church yard in Bennington, Vermont, having walked around Walden Pond and seen the place where Thoreau’s cabin once stood, having visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and observed the actual brush strokes of his famous and well-loved paintings, I can truthfully attest to the fact that their spirits live on—at least, that’s my reaction to my experience of each place, sacred in its own right and own way.

     True—none of those three were saints, but none of us are either. They merely followed the instincts of their souls, aware or unaware of doing so. But something stirred within them, and they could not help but follow, abandoning all thoughts to do otherwise if it ever occurred to them to do so, and perhaps over against the better judgement of others. It is the true mission of the impassioned heart, mind, and spirit to express what lies within, to be brought out and shared with the world, however great or small that world might be.

     I have often thought about the paradox of being human. It is common for us to be looking for the meaning of our lives—what is our purpose? Why are we here? We sometimes wonder if there is more to life than what we are experiencing and doing. Is there a life that has eluded us? But, on the other hand, we are living the life that already has a purpose by its nature. It may not seem grandiose, and yet, it uniquely represents who we are.

     What is sometimes missing, I think, is appreciation and passion for simply living with its possibilities of joys and, of course, challenges. It’s easy to become complacent to the degree that we shrug off the wonder of merely being alive and sometimes instead take on the mood of an often cynical world bent on scarring our souls.

     What Frost, Thoreau, Rockwell and their like had was to assume that who they were and who they were being was the answer to the question “What is my purpose?” So they lived with passion and acceptance that life had meaning and fulfillment in being their true selves, each with a different gift to offer the world—the same as we have to offer in being our true selves.

           

[Michael Faraday, scientist: “Nothing is too wonderful to be true.”]