Fully Alive
When it rains - hard - and you're caught in it, what do you do? Well, maybe you DANCE
When was the last time you had that sense of being fully and completely alive? It’s a good question isn’t it? The concept has been on my mind since a friend and I discussed it recently over lunch. I had shared with her that although there’s lots of uncertainty around giving up a regular income to pursue writing and photography and medical missions, and there’s a constant battle regarding “Am I doing the right thing?”, and of course there’s wrestling with that whole imposter idea, even with all those rollercoaster emotions, I don’t regret this pretty dramatic shift in life, because, for the most part, I am…and she completed the sentence for me…”fully alive.”
It’s not easy, nope, not at all. But I wouldn’t trade it for financial security or a certain future or…anything.
A story from a couple days ago to illustrate:
My accommodations were not too far from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, about a ten-minute walk, and most mornings found me in this beautiful green space in London. On this particular morning, rain was expected. “Okay,” I said to myself, “rain’s expected.” I tied my jacket hood over my baseball cap and headed out, an occasional raindrop already kissing my nose.
The sun was just waking in the east when I got to the park…
and Serpentine Lake was a picture of peace.
Droplets were spattering regularly now. I stood there at the water’s edge, breathing in serenity, beauty, and bird song, and was starting to feel rather damp.
I turned my focus to the west and a rainbow greeted me as the sun and the rain competed for attention. (A clash of water and light - I love how this particular battle, if we’re especially blessed, will only bring an arc of glorious color.)
I meandered along the path and said “hi” to Isis the Ibis and continued on my way.
Then I sauntered.1
Just beyond the Serpentine Lake, near the Long Water, Peter Pan was playing his flute (and getting drenched)!
A bit further north, the hugging bears. I love this statue so very much. By this time I was trying to protect my phone from the water.
I continued on my way for another twenty minutes or so and the skies fully opened up and I was caught completely in it!
When was the last time you lifted your face to the rain and just let it stream into your eyes, your nose, your mouth? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. But I did it on that walk. It is impossible not to smile a full-teeth smile when you do that. It’s just not possible. (Try it the next time it rains. Don’t worry about your hair or your clothes or your makeup. Just tip your face up to the sky and let the rain fall upon it. The harder it’s raining the better. Do it even if people look at you weird.)
I was SOAKED!
Exhilaration completely set in after that.
There was even water in my pockets!
I turned onto a quiet path…
And the following song came onto my playlist:
It was “Happy Dance” by MercyMe!
And it was perfecting timing!
I danced and twirled and marched and skipped and hopped and swayed and laughed my way down the length of that path! Arms wide sometimes, then pulled in, then out, then doing a victory pump. I whirled and jumped and kicked!
There were cyclists and runners and other walkers braving the rain with me that day.
But, I don’t believe there were any other dancers. There should have been!
I’m sure many of those passing through the park saw me dancing and there’s no question at all in my mind that I appeared ridiculous to them. But it just didn’t matter at all what they thought of me. I was too busy having the time of my life!
I made it to the South Flower Walk (which figures in the story of Peter Pan) and left the park soon after that.
Sometimes, I think, when we determine not to avoid a thing and instead we move toward it, the result of that decision is a very special memory.
And that memory, then, reveals and defines another facet of who we are.
As for me, just call me Dances with Rain.
And, oh, yes: Fully Alive.
“Hiking - I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter…not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these [places we go] are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."
-John Muir
I so enjoy traveling with you and joining your description of the trip. We have to dance together sometime! And thank you for sharing the MercyMe song; one I hadn’t heard before and I like them!
Knowing I’m doing God’s will lets me know I’m in the right place.