Seeking Aliveness Book Excerpt by Brian D. McLaren.

Introduction

What we all want is pretty simple, really. We want to be alive. To feel alive. Not just to exist but to thrive, to live out loud, walk tall, breathe free. We want to be less lonely, less exhausted, less conflicted or afraid . . . more awake, more grateful, more energized and purposeful. We capture this kind of mindful, overbrimming life in terms like well-being, shalom, blessedness, wholeness, harmony, life to the full, and aliveness.

The quest for aliveness explains so much of what we do. It’s why readers read and travelers travel. It’s why lovers love and thinkers think, why dancers dance and moviegoers watch. In the quest for aliveness, chefs cook, foodies eat, farmers till, drummers riff, fly fishers cast, runners run, and photographers shoot.

The quest for aliveness is the heartbeat that pulses through the Bible —

and the best thing about religion, I think. It’s what we’re hoping for when we pray. It’s why we gather, celebrate, eat, abstain, attend, practice, sing, and contemplate. When people say, “I’m spiritual,” what they mean, I think, is simple: “I’m seeking inner aliveness.”

Many older religious people — Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others — are paralyzed by sadness that their children and grandchildren are far from faith, religion, and God as they understand them. But on some level, they realize that religion too often shrinks, starves, cages, and freezes aliveness rather than fostering it. They are beginning to see that the only viable future for religion is to become a friend of aliveness again.

Meanwhile, aliveness itself is under threat at every turn. We have created an economic system that is not only too big to fail, it is too big to control — and perhaps too big to understand as well. This system disproportionately benefits the most powerful and privileged 1 percent of the human species, bestowing upon them unprecedented comfort, security, and luxury. To do so, it destabilizes the climate, plunders the planet, and kills off other forms of life at unprecedented rates.

The rest, especially the poorest third at the bottom, gain little and lose much as this economic pyramid grows taller and taller. One of their greatest losses is democracy, as those at the top find clever ways to buy votes, turning elected governments into their puppets. Under these circumstances, you would think that at least those at the top would experience aliveness. But they don’t. They bend under constant anxiety and pressure to produce, earn, compete, maintain, protect, hoard, and consume more and more, faster and faster. They lose the connection and well-being that come from seeking the common good. This is not an economy of aliveness for anyone.

As these tensions mount, we wake up every morning wondering what fool or fiend will be the next to throw a lit match — or assault, nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon — onto the dry tinder of resentment and fear. Again, this is a formula for death, not a recipe for life. So our world truly needs a global spiritual movement dedicated to aliveness. This movement must be global, because the threats we face cannot be contained by national borders. It must be spiritual, because the threats we face go deeper than brain-level politics and economics to the heart level of value and meaning. It must be social, because it can’t be imposed from above; it can only spread from person to person, friend to friend, family to family, network to network. And it must be a movement, because by definition, movements stir and focus grassroots human desire to bring change to institutions and the societies those institutions are intended to serve. Such a movement can even begin with one person: you.

I believe that the story of the Bible is largely the narrative of God working to bring and restore aliveness — through individuals, communities, institutions, and movements, especially movements started by individuals. In the biblical story, for example, Moses led a movement of liberation among oppressed slaves. They left an oppressive economy, journeyed through the wilderness, and entered a promised land where they hoped to pursue aliveness in freedom and peace. Centuries after that, the Hebrew prophets launched a series of movements based on a dream of a promised time . . . a time of justice when swords and spears, instruments of death, would be turned into plowshares and pruning hooks, instruments of aliveness. Then came John the Baptist, a bold and nonviolent movement leader who dared to challenge the establishment of his day and call people to a movement of radical social and spiritual rethinking.

John told people he was not the leader they had been waiting for; he was simply preparing the way for someone greater than himself. When a young man named Jesus came to affiliate with John’s movement through baptism, John said, “There he is! He is the one!” Under Jesus’s leadership, the movement grew and expanded in unprecedented ways. When Jesus was murdered by the powers that profited from the status quo, the movement didn’t die. It rose again through a new generation of leaders like James, Peter, John, and Paul, who were full of the Spirit of Jesus. They created learning circles in which activists were trained to extend the movement locally, regionally, and globally. Wherever individual activists in this movement went, the Spirit of Jesus was alive in them, fomenting change and inspiring true aliveness.

This fifty-two-week compilation of daily reflections is adapted from my book, We Make the Road by Walking. My prayer is that it will be a resource for this emerging spiritual movement in service of aliveness. It is essentially a retelling of the biblical story and a reintroduction to Christian faith. It is organized around four major themes chronicled in Scripture whose common thread is the “quest for aliveness.” It begins with the book of Genesis and finishes in the book of Revelation. At the beginning of each week you’ll find a few Bible passages listed that you can read in any responsible translation, such as the New Revised Standard Version. Then you’ll see some key verses (or a single verse) from these Bible passages printed out in their entirety on which you can sharpen your focus, and possibly commit to memory. Your enjoyment of that week’s daily reflections will be enriched if you take the time to read the passages and verses upon which they are based. Of course, the line of interpretation and application I have chosen is one of many possible responses to each text. At times, it may differ from the interpretation you have heard in the past; you are asked only to give it an honest and open hearing, and you should feel free to prefer another interpretation.

There are five to seven reflections per week to be read over fifty-two weeks — a personal resource for your own thinking and rethinking. Then there is a thought or practice for the day. You can use this “Today” section to set the tone for your inner conversation throughout the day, to guide you in what to notice, and to keep you alert for opportunities to do good. One of my mentors likes to say that “Learning is not the consequence of teaching; it is the consequence of thinking and doing.” The “Today” section invites you to think and do in response to what you feel God is saying to you through the daily reflection.

If you’re a seeker exploring Christian faith, or if you’re new to the faith and seeking a good orientation, here you’ll find the introduction to the central theme of the Bible I wish I had been given. If you’re a long-term Christian whose current form of Christianity has stopped working and may even be causing you and others harm, here you’ll find a reorientation from a fresh and healthy perspective. If your faith seems to be a lot of talk without much practice, I hope this book of reflections will help you translate your faith into meaningful, creative action.

We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from SEEKING ALIVENESS by author Brian D. McLaren. If you’d like to continue reading it, the book is available in trade paperback and ebook formats wherever books are sold, including:

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