Preciousness of the Gift of Life - Recounting the Blessings

(Picture courtesy: Jean-Marc Arakelian)

Time is flying but life moves on. It’s three years since I went through the knife which ushered a new lease of life for me. My second life, indeed, after going through horrific ordeal looking out for better treatment from one doctor another, from one treatment to another, from one city to another, from one country to another, from one method to another, I am still kicking. Perhaps it has made me stronger both mentally, physically and spiritually. However, may not be a complete man physically!

1. Accepting quick changes in life with an open embrace of mystery

Often I look at life as a mystery.  In the words of Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), a French Philosopher: “Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.”  In other words, a problem may be solved but not a mystery. In spite of a major surgery which, took place exactly three years ago (31st October 2018), my life has been full of action. Living with a particular medical condition is not easy but looking at what I went through with a destructive illness in my body I seem to forget about everything as if I had no such illness at all. In spirituality, this is called grace. Grace is a free gift of the benevolent God. I believe that today I am tasting such a graced life. 

I have experienced very few dull moments since the operation allowed me to live only on my smaller intestine. Often they happened due to the blockage of my ilium because I ate something that was not proper to my clinical condition. Recently I counted that in three months I taught three distinct subjects in different educational setups measuring up to 80 hours of classroom teaching. Moreover, I also edited a 300 pages length book during that time. Meanwhile, I published every week almost 1000 words write up. I also did many other things as well which are connected with my life as a Jesuit and Catholic priest.

One of the beautiful things about life, when one takes positively and as life comes by is that you begin to look at the gifts God the creator has given to you. There are many things I may not be able to do like playing basketball (I played for my university college KCD, Dharwad during my first degree) or swimming or even mere running. However, nothing seems to have disappointed me. I see it as though everything has happened to my good. For me,   now every year is a bonus now. Every birthday is an achievement. 

2. To see life with awe and reverence

In this context, I see today, life is a precious gift. You can make it beautiful if you are ready to embrace it with reverence and awe. Karl Rahner, the German theologian once said: “When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying.” Prayer is not that you do with something that is outside of you instead you do with what is inside of you, especially knowing fully well who you are. In fact, we must take care of our life with all its seriousness. 

If one is ready to take one's life with an open embrace then you truly understood that each day is a gift. In our rat race of life, we forget to appreciate the life that is fragile, vulnerable, short, weak, limited, temporary and imperfect. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), a German philosopher would say that we are all unfinished realities on this earth. Therefore the very precarious situation of dying, diagnosis with chronic illness is simply a reason to be frightened of our own very limitedness.  And since we don’t know how much time we have, we must learn to use what we have wisely. We must learn to appreciate everything we have in life. 

3. Life is a precious gift

Life is indeed an amazing gift to those who realise it’s preciousness. Our life has meaning when we realise that it’s a gift, indeed an incredible gift. Life is a trajectory of both good and bad, life and death, joy and sorrow, war and peace. In this dialectical dilemma of our existential life, we are on a journey that is often complicated and less travelled. Life can be interesting and purposeful when we make it something fascinating. Lori Villamil says, "people who are on the journey are a lot more interesting than people who, having found answers, are in dry dock." 

Perhaps, we are thrown open to the near-death realities including those who understand us or merely who act like strangers in our life. The impeccable routine of our lifestyle often is in fear of accepting life as a graced moment. We cannot afford to live our precious life with the neuralgic conditions of our own making.  Hence, we must learn to appreciate everything we have in life. Each stage of our life is important which in fact, prepares us for another stage of life. 

4. Life is momentous but refreshing

The Kannada Jain poets of yesteryears imagined in their literary compositions about life as nothingness in its absurdity of momentous living. They likened life as that of a drop of water that falls on a leaf and vanishes away in a second or a rainbow, beautiful yet very short, or lightening, flashing tremendous light but just for a moment. Everything is momentary and time-bound here on earth. The Christian scriptures point to us about life in Psalm 90:12 “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Only a serene wisdom might rescue us from the fear of that moment of death, decay and destruction. 

Life is short; life is brief; and things can change in a split second. In this life of momentousness, each one is invited to contribute his or her mite for the betterment of humanity. In fact, we are pushed to a situation where time is precious, therefore use it wisely. If you take your life seriously then you truly understand each day is a gift. Sometimes because our life is so busy we forget how life is so fragile. Death, dying, pandemics, illnesses remind us not to take our lives for granted but to live each moment of life to its fullest. Sometimes, things may not move the way we want and life seems stuck somewhere without making any progress. Each moment that passes by is precious and each day is irreplaceable. That is what life has taught me with that life-saving operation that happened three years ago. 

- Olvin Veigas, SJ 

31 October 2021