I was reading one of
my favorite authors on the way home from London and stumbled on this incredible thought. It was one of those thoughts that I have always felt in my gut, but could never articulate (don't you love that, when someone poetically speaks your own deep thoughts out loud). Anyway, I just thought I'd post this here and share it....
"Each one of us has a spirit, this power of life in us, and like breath it is not just something that is in us but something that also issues from us. Every man has the capacity to project some of this power of his own life, his vitality, into others. It is the power literally to inspire, breathe into, and although it is invisible and intangible and cannot be put into a test tube or under a microscope, it is perhaps the greatest and most dangerous power that we have...
We can all remember certain people who were not necessarily any more intelligent or eloquent than other people but who had this power to communicate something of their aliveness in such a way that it is *part of our aliveness still.* This does not come through what they say or through what they do necessarily but through what they manage to be. The word "inspiring" has been so loosely used for so long that it no longer conveys very much, but again, in the literal sense that is what such people are--life-breathing, not through deeds or words so much as through some *invisible force that leaps from their lives into our lives like electricity.* There are times when this force of a person is so intense that we can feel it when he just walks into a room... In some measure everyone has the power to transform for good or ill *the whole life of the community,* invisibly, intangibly, but nonetheless really.
And one of the strangest aspects of spirit is that it does not appear to be bound by either time or space. *The spirit of a community is the product not only of all who are part of it now but of all who were part of it years ago and whose very names may no longer be remembered.* By the power of your spirit, your life can reach out and become part of my life, you can empower me to do things and be things that i could never manage on my own, and this can remain true whether we are six feet apart of six thousand miles, six years or sixty. The spirit of men who died centuries ago can intoxicate us, electrify us, tranform us, as much now as when they were alive."
That last thought made think of how much I have been "intoxicated, electrified, and transformed" by so many other people. I know the "flavor" of my spirit has been directly influenced by C.S.Lewis, Brennan Manning, Vittoria Colonna, John, Madam Guyon, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Rob Bell, Frederic Buechner... as well as many of my friends--both old and new.
So take a minute, and leave a comment with the names of the people who have inspired and transformed you--people who are "a part of your aliveness still." I'd love to know who they are... and if you happen to have NPD* feel free to post as anon.
*a couple of us among the design community at ASU joke about having NPD (Nervous Posting Disorder) because of the anxiety that takes over before you make a public statement that you rarely can take back ;)
