A Living Gift

-A Living Gift-

Wandering through the cemetery yesterday, whilst I walked towards the hospital, not sure if I was going to make it there, I got to thinking about what a life means, surrounded by all those stones. Wondering if I had achieved all that I had wanted to achieve... taking a few photo's while I had the opportunity... forever the opportunistic artist.

It was cold and sunny, and my little angel shone with a dazzling lustre in the crisp sunlit air. She, and a few other things, suddenly struck my eye, and I guess a certain realization came upon me, as it so often does in such moments. The realization that the real gifts we leave are not the bridges of stone or mountains of metal that we build, or even the organizations, the rocks and stones we move about us, but rather the hearts we have inhabited, the intangible fleeting moments, where one soul has communed with another. Where one heart has spoken gently with some other, whose rhythm and rhyme has met with our own in that instant of time.

So that the earth, or the eyes that see it, barely recognize the footprints we have left behind, barely notice the coming and going of each soul as they have lived. Yet, it is the passing of the flame which is the true gift. The flickering light that passes between hearts, between souls, eyes opened to one another, so that the soul of each becomes one within the soul of the other. And though it may seem as though the tangible remnants of a life are meagre or as nothing, or even if it be mountains that we have moved, the truth, is that in the subtle communion of that moment, a moment in which we have shared of our true selves, we leave an indelible footprint upon the soulful road of another.

Lives made all the richer for the passing of that flame, the evolution of each, enriched in those heartfelt steps, moving ever forward, bolstered and encouraged by that communion. So that often the measure of our lives is completely intangible, as we effect the world in ways we could never imagine, simply by being, through the sincerity and authenticity of who we truly are.

We effect the world as a living entity, and we connect with other lives, displaced from our own by many miles or many years. Generations may pass, before the seemingly intangible meeting of hearts and minds, souls, that open to one another in an instant of time, effect each-other, though vastly removed from that initial communion. Lives, affected by our being, through the quality of our existence and intimacy of that communion.

The recognition of a shared existence, often removed from one another by generations, and vast distances in time and space, and completely intangible in material terms, unrecognized by sentient eyes. Life, this living gift, each soul offers to another, is a thread in a fabric of time, a weave upon a tapestry, so vast, that in the blessing of that gift our own lives extend themselves far beyond anything we may imagine. The meaningful associations we forge with those who enter our lives, and are themselves a part of an extended tapestry of existence, that have preceded them, progress further to touch still more lives, in ways we can scarcely conceive.

These connections would and could never have happened without us, no matter what we may conceive of our own worth and the worth of the tangible material we may leave behind. For we are part of the great panoply of existence, and because of this truth, intrinsically and irrevocably valuable. The inviolability of this truth is that our worth is not in the things we have left behind, but in the hearts we have touched, the souls with whom we have communed, and the quality with which we have existed.

Each courageous moment of sincerity, of authentic vulnerability, is more profoundly precious than we can ever comprehend. It should never be forgotten, that our legacy is first and foremost one of the soul, and it's worth is measured through the sincerity of our communion. For it is this, that is passed as a living gift, to lives, enriched, not just within the circles of those we have known, but to all who will be touched through that communion, across the vast reaches of space and time, for the gift of life, ultimately, is in the passing of that flame.

© Richard Michael Parker 2013