Life – and 7 other L Words…

It’s one of Jesus’ most popular claims, “I am come that you may have life, and life in all its fullness” (John 10:10). The implication is clear. Follow me, and you will find the life that is most truely life. Now given that Jesus was the speaker, we shouldn’t be too quick to assume we know what this means. After all, the same Jesus said that if we want to find our lives we must be willing to lose them (Matt 10:39) and that the first will be last (Matt 20:16), and that the way is narrow, and only a few find it (Matt 7:14). These are puzzling ideas – deeply challenging ones. Loss, and last and narrow are not likely to be our first choice of words to accompany “life in all its fullness”.

With this important qualifier, let me have a go at adding 7 “L” words to help fill out what I think “life in all its fullness” might look like. But however perplexing, don’t forget to add loss, and last and narrow to them, because I suspect that it is in the interaction of them all that a helpful portrait of the flourishing life emerges.

So what are my 7 “L” words? They are live, love, listen, learn, laugh, lead and leave. A quick comment on each…

Live, because not to is to turn your nose up at the gift God has given you. And life is an astonishing gift. Dive right into it. I often ask the probing question from Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Your one wild and precious life – for that is what it is. For all the ups and downs, the oddities and confusion – it’s the life you get to live, and it is precious. Dive into it. It is insulting to God to refuse to fully live the life given to you – to live too tiny a life, or to refuse to have a go at life, because you are disappointed that you are not bigger, or smarter, or richer or whatever comparison finds you wanting, and provides the perpetual excuse for you to sit on the sidelines of life. Live, because one day the “times up” announcement will call and the question will not be “what is it you plan to do” but “what is it you did” with your one wild and precious life.

Love, because it is at the heart of all Jesus taught and did. He summarised all the commands into just 2 – both about love. Love the Lord your God with everything you have, and love your neighbour as yourself (Matt 22:36-40). True, love comes in many different forms. Time teaches us to be cautious of the sloppier, sentimental versions of it. Love is demonstrated over the long haul. It is about turning up day after day. It is about genuinely seeking the good of the other. It is about reaching out – be that reaching upwards to God or outward to the neighbour. It is often intensely practical. Not that it is always about doing. The act of listening well to another can be the most loving thing we can do. And so to the next L word…

Listen, because you weren’t the first here and there is much to learn. Listen, because just as your story needs to be told and heard, so does every story. One of life’s greatest sadnesses is that many people have a story that no one has listened to. There is a way of listening that has the power to transform reality. It’s when we lean into the story deeply, dissatisfied with shallow or stereotypical answers. It is when we hear the unspoken, and spot the deeper layers of reality. If we listen really well, sometimes even the speaker hears what they are saying in a new and liberating way. If you want to live fully, work at listening well, for only then will you hear the most interesting and liberating of stories. And those stories are of love, and pain, and hope, and failure, and courage, and tragedy, and triumph, and frailty, and betrayal, and transcendence, and God, and life.

Learn, because it is such a waste to keep on repeating the same mistakes. Time is a precious gift. Don’t squander it by stubbornly refusing to learn from it. If you keep your eyes open, you can learn so much from life, and others, and scripture. Why eyes open to learn from scripture? Because narrative passages are the bread and butter of scripture and the most prominent literary form in the Bible. It’s stories have stood (and will continue to stand) the test of time because they are repeated over and over again. The David and Goliath story (1 Sam 17) that you see may not be between a shepherd and a giant – but you will see it many times in your life. True, David doesn’t always win, and we sense the heartbreak of that. Or perhaps David does always win, if we remember that Jesus alerts us that the last will be first…

Laugh, because my goodness, life is funny. And laughter and tears are not always far apart. We are such strange creatures, strutting around with an inflated sense of our importance, desperate to show we are more significant than others… and then you look at the stars – there are well over a billion different galaxies in the observable Universe, and here we are feeling important because we have achieved what? According to Paul, nothing at all, unless we have done it with love (1 Cor 13:1-3). We have such muddled priorities. But that’s why we are desperate to find our life, and to be first, and to wander down the wide and easy path… It’s amusing and sad, all at once.

Lead, because you have something to offer. I’ve long been a champion of quiet leadership, not because I am not impressed by the charismatic leadership that some bring, but because I am saddened by the giftedness that others don’t cultivate because they are too much in awe of a handful of people who seem larger than life. Learn from the stories of life. It was the young boy with only 5 loaves and 2 fish who sparked a miracle where thousands were fed. Yet it started with the sceptical comment and question: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9). The answer – further than anyone (bar Jesus) could possibly have imagined. And the boy models Jesus’ truth – be willing to lose what you have (5 loaves, 2 fish), and find life. There are many forms of leadership, but it starts with the willingness to offer what we have – however modest it might seem to be.

Leave, a strange word to end on, but perhaps that’s because I’m writing as a 68 year old. It’s hard to know how to juggle this one. When is the right time to leave, to hand what you have on to another generation? And what do you hand over and what do you hold onto? Sometimes there is not a choice to be made . Others announce that your time is up, and there is little you can do about it. Regardless, we all get to leave at some point. We are at best custodians for the future. We should live our lives to the end (for to say it again, not to do so is to insult God) but we need to leave plenty of room for others. And when we have had our turn, it’s important to give others their go as well, even as we keep our eyes alert to new ways of living and being we might previously have overlooked. Life is full and rich, and as Milton’s poem On his Blindness expresses it, “they also serve who only stand and wait”.

And so to the promise of Jesus, who reminds us that he came that we might have life and life in all its fullness… life where we live, love, listen, learn, laugh, lead and leave, always remembering that we find our life when we lose it, the first will be last, and narrow is the way…

Nice chatting…

Photo by Darcy Lawrey: https://www.pexels.com/photo/shallow-focus-of-yellow-flowers-946290/

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