Living Consciously

Spain Pilgrimage '14 - Photo credit: Matt DuRoss '05

My friend, Al, was departing for a much-anticipated spiritual pilgrimage, walking The Camino in Spain. The day before he was scheduled to depart, he received a stage-four cancer diagnosis and had to cancel his trip.

Al was dying. Over the next weeks as we’d sit and talk, Al would end each of our conversations the same way. With a wry smile he’d repeat a great insight: “John, I am walking my Camino. It just isn’t the one that I expected.” Full and extraordinary consciousness.

In many ways, I see the experience of the Rich Man from Luke's Gospel in a similar way. He is walking; but, in his earthly life he does so in a state of unconsciousness. The author doesn’t imply that this man was malicious. We may infer that he was like us; seeking social acceptability, absorbed in daily life, earning a living, going to temple.

Yet literally or figuratively he “steps over Lazarus” each day. Unconscious.

Cancer for Al and a state of eternal separation for the Rich Man offered profound moments for conversion (perhaps the Rich Man’s timing of that realization of that was a little off but nevertheless). In the psalm for today, we hear that "the LORD is close to the brokenhearted." He is close to Lazarus for "many are the troubles of the just man, but out of them all the LORD delivers him." He invites us to also be close to those who are brokenhearted, those who are suffering and in distress.

Each day, God sends Lazarus to each of our doorsteps, just as he did for Al and just as he did for the Rich Man. Let us pray that we grow in our consciousness of the moments when we encounter the brokenhearted at our doorstep.

Author: John Sabine, Advancement Department