I like to think that Existence, the Divine, the Absolute, the Transcendent carries within it a feeling, a sense of being a gift. A gift to itself, to everything that is. So much so that it longs for something else to feel the same way.
What if sharing this essence was simply part of its nature?
Maybe it’s just speculation, a thought I can’t prove. I’m no mystic. I don’t have visions, I don’t hold spiritual truths, I’ve never had an NDE. And yet, this thought gives me something to hold onto. It takes me somewhere quiet, somewhere full of light, as if just imagining that the Absolute sees itself as a gift to all that exists could be enough. A kind of relief. And at the same time, as if it longs for us, tiny scattered sparks in the universe, to feel like a gift, too.
An illusion? Maybe. Should we be more cynical, more attuned to the rawness of the world? Violence exists. Power, abuse, suffering, war, poverty, these are real. But so is something else.
It’s not about turning away from reality. It’s about stepping into another way of seeing: what if we allowed ourselves, even for a moment, to feel precious? A gift from Existence to life itself.
Have you ever thought of yourself that way? A gift to yourself? To others?
There’s something powerful in realizing that as long as we exist, we are living potential. We are possibility. Not because we are extraordinary, but simply because we are. Because we are here. Even those who can’t move, can’t speak, those trapped in a fragile, vulnerable body, still, they move something. Often, in the hearts of others.
I think of children with profound disabilities, unable to respond, to express themselves, to communicate in the ways we understand. And yet, they exist. And their existence stirs something, connection, responsibility, something deep and unspoken.
A gift. They are. And so are we.
Even those who feel useless, lost, broken. Even those who see no meaning. Even those who have convinced themselves they never mattered, or never were anything at all.
To exist is to still be a possibility.
“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
—Dinos Christianopoulos
We are seeds, even when we don’t realize it.
A song that cracks something open inside you. The rush of joy in two young people holding their first child. A child who, with a single glance, softens the exhaustion in his father’s eyes after a long day. A friend who stays, even when the shine wears off, even when everything feels heavy.
A burst of laughter over nothing at all (because sometimes, the most reasonable thing is a little bit of nonsense 🙂 ). Or to put it another way: laughing for no reason is proof we are still alive.
And then… having lived through so much, even pain, maybe having crossed your own abyss, and still being here.
Something that resists, that shifts, that keeps moving forward despite everything.
Sometimes we wish we could save lives. The lives of those we love. But it’s not always possible. And in those moments, the most precious thing we can do is take a hand in ours and press it to our heart as they slip away.
Let me keep things simple for a moment. Let me set aside, just for now, grand and ancient questions, life after death, reincarnation, the idea of souls having an earthly experience.
Let me just say this:
One day, when we are no more, when we dissolve into the infinitesimal nothing, if we ever dissolve into nothing at all, there will be an eternity to be truly, utterly nothing.
But as long as we are here, we are something. And that something is a gift 🙂
Maybe that’s the quiet wonder of existence: in an apparently indifferent universe, we can choose to see ourselves as gifts.
Not out of arrogance or pride, but simply to honor what we’ve been given: to be alive, with all the possibility and all the complexity that entails.
What do you think?
