LOOK ALIVE!

It doesn’t matter what you look like.

It doesn’t matter if you’re pretty or handsome.

Cute. Sexy. Dashing or debonair. 

You will not be long remembered for these. 

Sorry. Or maybe that’s good news.

What will stick is this:

At any given moment, 

you either look basically dead.

Or beautifully alive.   

Your face is how people will decide. 

--what they see when they lay their eyes on you

for more than just a passing moment

--perhaps an unguarded one

when you don’t catch them 

peering past your pretenses.

What they will remember is this: 

Whether you look like you’re in love 

with this gift called life. Or not.

So, when you look at someone today,

look like you really do care about them

--even if you don’t know them,

especially if you don’t know them.

Look like you are interested 

in the who that they are, 

in what they honor, in why they hurt.

Look like your dog--not the cat, 

definitely not the cat--looks at you 

when you finally come home.

In other words . . . look alive! 

At least, 

you’ll give them something to talk about.

More likely, you’ll give them 

a peace in the passing.

It may even open them 

to a sweet moment of joy, 

a hiatus of hope. 

They’ll know that they 

have indeed spotted  

a rare, exotic and captivating life form

singing away right in the belly of their 

busyness-as-usual forest.

They may even give you 

that same lovely look back 

because deep down, they know.

they know what’s happening on the inside 

when you look like that on the outside. 

They know there’s only one place

in the whole universe where that particular look 

can come from: Your Source. Your Soul. Your Savior.

Call it what you will. It’s a holiness within,

a holiness ever so briefly shared.

And really, what have you to lose? A smile? 

A moment of authentic humanity?

A look that says, “Whether I know you or not, 

whether I’ve ever seen you before,

or will ever see you again,

I’m glad we’re both here.

This may take some work.