Lived Life

"If the unexamined life is not worth living, 

the unlived life is hardly worth examining."

(From an article entitled "About Face--Why I'm Not On Facebook" by Steve Baarendse, Associate Professor of English and Humanities at Columbia International University in the May/June Touchstone magazine, . You can download a PDF of the article here by permission of Touchstone Magazine.)

Many of you know my wife Sharon is currently going through a round of chemo due to her battle with breast cancer.  Many have graciously commented on Sharon's journal entries on CaringBridge and what an encouragement those entries are as they walk on their own journey.  I think at the root of this response is that these people know it comes from a "lived life."

My point is that Sharon is one of those people who has not been sitting on the sidelines of life and waiting for things to happen. She is not one who tries to live life vicariously through her kids, her husband or her Facebook page. Sharon is one of those people, to quote Thoreau, who wants to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."  (Although why this imagery is appealing I'll never know.)

The reason the sharing of her experiences and insights touches people, I believe, is because there is integrity.  (The word integrity comes from the root word integer, which refers to a "complete entity.")  It doesn't mean she's perfect.  What it means is what you see is what you get.  Her life is integrated.  She seldom compartmentalizes so she has a spiritual life disconnected from an emotional life disconnected from a physical life.

So Sharon is not one of those whose unexamined life is not worth living.  Nor is she one of those whose unlived life is hardly worth examining.  No, Sharon is one of those rare individuals whose lived life is worth examining.  Thank God she's willing to allow us to do that in her journal entries.  And she's been kind enough to allow me that privilege for almost 40 years.