When The Flying J's were preparing for our first full length album, both Jimmy and Julie independently wrote songs called "I'm Alive".  This morning, actually just a few minutes ago, we sang a David Crowder tune, "You Alone", the song culminates in revelry of "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive..."

One of my favorite books, perhaps the most influential book in my life outside of scripture, is Manalive by G. K. Chesterton.  The book's main character is named Innocent Smith, and his identity, or rather his self declaration, is 'Man found alive with two legs'.  The other characters in the story are baffled, and a good portion of the plot centers around them judging his sanity.

My parents had a Roger Whittaker LP, and when I was a kid I listened to it over and over.  His song, "The First Hello, The Last Goodbye", says

They say the moment that you're born
is when you start to die...

It's not the point of his song, but this morning as we asserted our Beating Hearts, a thought entered my head: Death comes slowly.  Little by little, it creeps and covers.  It grows, it matures. Some call it old age. Bother that. Old age has nothing to do with death.  The Ancient of Days is a wellspring of Life. No, Life is struggle, like a new born infant at odds with the new world, but full of life.  Death is complacency, settlement.  If you're not gathering, then you are scattering.  If you are not actively pursuing Life, then you are Dying.  It's easy to die, we do it all the time.  (I don't mean the sacrificial dying to self; that's more Life than Death anyway.)

"... each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death."

James 1:15

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