Fully Alive

St. Irenaeus is often quoted as having said “the glory of God is man fully alive.” 

I have been meaning to write this particular post for almost a month now, and this quote keeps coming to mind. 

A few weekends ago, my dad and I spent a Saturday with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins at the beach house where they were staying for the weekend. The water here is pretty cold, so it’s been a while since I’ve gone in further than calf-deep, but I still urged my dad to bring the boogie boards when we went, and I wore my bathing suit under my clothes. Several weeks earlier, I had gone to the beach with my sister and the day was so beautiful and sunny that it seemed as if the water was beckoning to me. Unfortunately, that time I had not brought my swimsuit, so I decided not to make that mistake again.

(I did not take this photo)

This trip to the beach came about a week or two after I started my swimming class at the local community college. I grew up swimming with my family every summer and took swim lessons as a child, but as an adult I stayed away from public swimming, for the most part, because I was too ashamed of my body to be seen in a swimsuit. This particular class I am now taking is one that I had wanted to take way back in spring 2005 or so, shortly after I first started attending college after high school. Although I added it to my schedule, I ended up dropping it even before showing my face at the pool, because I just couldn’t muster up the self-confidence to be seen in a bathing suit in front of classmates.

This fall, when I returned home to California and decided to take some classes to really focus on my health and fitness, I decided enough was enough.

I’m tired of waiting to enjoy my life. Sure, there are some things that I physically cannot do because of my weight and fitness level, but the longer I wait for “someday when I’m thin” in order to do things I enjoy (especially active things), the less likely it is that “someday” will arrive. 

This has been one of the best and most liberating decisions I have made recently. In taking the swim class, I re-discovered with great joy just how much I love to swim. 

A similar thing happened at the beach that sunny weekend in early October. I got in the water with my boogie board and had a blast riding the waves. More importantly, I felt more like myself than I have in a long time, and it was then that I realized that this is truly what Transfigured is all about, at the very core: becoming not just more “fully alive,” but more fully myself. 

At the heart of everything, our truest selves are the selves that God created us to be (and, ultimately, we are meant to be like Christ). 

I have been thinking a lot about this recently, which is part of the reason for my delay in posting. I have been pondering what many of you may yourselves be pondering now after reading this: what does enjoying swimming and the ocean have to do with God and growing in holiness? 

The most basic way to express our purpose in life is found in the Baltimore Catechism: “to know, love, and serve God.” As I have taught many times in my adult religious education and RCIA classes, we can know God in three ways: through Divine Revelation, through humanity (created in the image of God), and through creation/nature. In a very real way, when we come to know ourselves – our truest selves – we come to know God better, and when we come to know God better, we come to know ourselves better since we are created in His image and likeness. Similarly, the creation story in Genesis tells us that God created the earth for us. He created it to be everything we need to live – a home, food, shelter, and companionship. Most importantly, He created it to help lead us closer to Himself. 

I have often thought about how, when God created the universe, He knew exactly what and who He would create and what each person would enjoy. For example, I am absolutely delighted by fireflies. In fact, I think it was when I was out firefly gazing that this thought occurred to me – God knew when He created fireflies that they would bring me joy, and the same is true for each person He created (think about that the next time you’re enjoying a beautiful sunset, or mountain range, or whatever it is in God’s creation that brings you joy). In a sense, it is one way that He shows His love for us which, in turn, leads us to love Him more (another tenet of our purpose in life).

In my particular case, these little joys not only help me to better know and love God, but they ultimately help me better serve Him, if I choose to use them do so. 

I have the great privilege of doing something that brings me great joy (swimming) that also helps me to improve my health, which in turn makes me better able (physically) to serve God. The more my health improves, the more energy I have – energy that I can use at the service of the Lord in whatever ways He may lead me.

My hope for everyone reading this blog, and ultimately every future participant in the Transfigured program, is that each and every one of you will seek not only to lose weight or change your body for external reasons, but that you will discover your truest self – the self that God created you to be. I have no doubt that this is what brings the greatest joy in life above any number on the scale or size of clothing.

When I was researching for this post, I came across a few articles commenting on the quote I used at the beginning. One author argues that the original quote is, in fact, not “man fully alive,” but rather “living man.” In other words, it goes a little something more like this:

“The glory of God is living man…[and] the life of a man is the vision of God.” In other words, we are truly alive when we live our life in Christ, and the fullest expression of that life is eternal life with God in Heaven – the beatific vision. May we all find that which will lead us to this vision and bring us not only joy on earth, but eternal joy with God in Heaven.