Life

Life. How do we define it? What is it? What do we do with it?

Life. We touch it. We sense it. We breathe it in and out, constantly, as the heart pumps blood with oxygen to the whole body, in and out, constantly.

So maybe that’s life — a back-and-forth, going forward and backward and forward again.

Maybe that’s life, where we rush to get somewhere, and then we slow down and back up a little bit, perhaps to ask: “Do we really want to go there?”  Perhaps to give us the restfulness, the gathering of energy that we need, so that we can go there.

When we climb a mountain, sometimes we have to stop a little bit — but not too long. We can’t just stay there. It’s either up or down.

Life has so much to offer. But for what reason? What are we supposed to do with it? What’s its purpose? It’s meaning?

When there are wars we try to make peace. When we need something, we try to get it. And sometimes, when life seems just overwhelming, we back up a little bit. We stop, gathering energy, gathering strength, and, looking up higher to where we want to go, gathering motivation.

And sometimes we look way up, above the Earth, above the universe, above space. We look way up to G-d Almighty, and we tell ourselves: It’s up to Him.

And we convince ourselves that things will be good, that the world will become peaceful.

Sometimes, when life is overwhelming, we trust in G-d to turn everything into peacefulness, calmness, a goodness that we can see.

Sometimes when we are climbing, when we’re striving and reaching, we pause and look up.

Sometimes.