How to Live Your Life

How to Live Your Life

There's a story about the Buddha leaving his home to teach enlightenment, and not saying goodbye to his son because he feared his attachment to his son would get in the way of enlightenment and mess it all up.

We're like this. We read a book. We have a conversation with someone and -- for me, this happens when there's a large amount of caffeine involved -- we think we finally get it. We achieve some kind of enlightenment.

But then real life comes along and messes everything up. The only left to do is scroll through Instagram until we pass out.

We could take the Buddha Option and cut ourselves off from all attachments. But that's easier said then done. Even if we limit our attachments, other people and reality itself keeps intervening. Life always seems to get in the way of living.

There's another approach that isn't distraction and isn't detachment.

Here's what Paul says in one of his letters: Rejoice always.

Here's Paul in another one of his letters: Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Maybe it's a flat contradiction. Or, maybe life is complicated and the answers aren't easy.

Take those two quotations from Paul. Can they be read together?

Maybe weeping is not the opposite of joy. Paul counsels weeping with the weepers toward the end of his letter to the Romans. It's a section all about attachments--how to relate to people around you.

Paul does not counsel us to cut off those relationships. Instead he gives different ways to navigate them, focusing not on the problem of "them" but on our own posture, our own responsibility. And so, with the weepers we weep, the rejoicers we party, the lowly we associate, the enemies we embarrass with kindness.

He counsels us to be more attuned to the world, more directly connected, to be affected by it, yes, but also to change it, to "overcome evil with good."

So how do you live your life?

First, by genuinely living it and not seeking to be cut off from it by enlightenment or distraction. Second, by attunement, learning to respond appropriately in different situations. And third, by ignoring lists from pastors who make it as easy as "first, second, third ..." and instead living fully the life you're given, within the intimacy and paradox of grace.

- Pastor Eddy