Life is a Crash Course in Becoming

There is no formula for living there is only a crash course in experience where plunging headlong into reality requires response. Crashing headlong begins before we are ready, before we are taught - we learn along the way through suffering and mistakes, through parents, teachers, and others. We are forged in the heat of existence and grow into the freedom of our power to choose.

We did not choose our parents, our culture, our language, our birth nation, or our gender. We did not choose our intellectual capacities, our physical appearance, height, or abilities. Even our religion was a product of birthplace, family, and culture.

We are propelled through life like a falling star in the night for all to see, or look away and miss, or simply be on the other side of the world.

Yet, our power, our freedom, to choose is given innumerable opportunities to express our humanness among others. Our power to choose, to affect the world we live in and share is ever-present. Only love slows our descent in the heavens and demonstrates our journey to be of a divine light.

Love is wisdom’s grace given freely through a life in pursuit of God, a story to mine, an exemplar to follow, a shining light whose brightness blesses eternity.

We are all broken and bruised along the way. Our suffering is the grace that forms our person, if we choose to rise above it and find ourselves to be more than the chaos that besets our way.

- Phillip Michael Garner -