A PORTRAIT OF THE FULLY ALIVE HUMAN BEING

John Powell, SJ

BY WAY OF A GENERAL DESCRIPTION, fully alive people are those who are
using all their human faculties, powers, and talents. They are using them to the full.
These individuals are fully functioning in their external and internal senses. They are
comfortable with and open to the full experience and expression of all human emotions.
Such people are vibrantly alive in mind, heart, and will. There is an instinctive fear in
most of us, I think, to travel with our engines at full throttle. We prefer, for the sake of
safety, to take life in small dainty doses. The fully alive person travels with the
confidence that, if one is alive and fully functioning in all parts and powers, the result will
be harmony, not chaos.
Fully alive human beings are alive in their external and internal senses. They
see a beautiful world. They hear its music and poetry. They smell the fragrance of
each new day and taste the deliciousness of every moment. Of course their senses
are also insulted by ugliness and offended by odors. To be fully alive means to be
open to the whole human experience. It is a struggle to climb a mountain, but the view
from the top is magnificent. Fully alive individuals have activated imaginations and
cultivated senses of humor. They are alive, too, in their emotions. They are able to
experience the full gamut and galaxy of human feelings -- wonder, awe, tenderness,
compassion, both agony and ecstasy.
Fully alive people are also alive in their minds. They are very much aware of
the wisdom in the statement of Socrates that "the unreflected life isn't worth living."
Fully alive people are always thoughtful and reflective. They are capable of asking the
right questions of life and flexible enough to let life question them. They will not live an
unreflected life in an unexamined world. Most of all, perhaps, these people are alive
in will and heart. They love much. They truly love and sincerely respect themselves.
All love begins here and builds on this. In a delicate and sensitive way they also love
others. Their general disposition towards all is one of concern and love. And there
are individuals in their lives who are so dear to them that the happiness, success, and
security of these loved ones are as real to them as their own. They are committed and
faithful to those they love in this special way.
 For such people life has the color of joy and the sound of celebration. Their lives
are not a perennial funeral procession. Each tomorrow is a new opportunity which is
eagerly anticipated. There is a reason to live and a reason to die. And when such
people come to die their hearts will be filled with gratitude for all that has been, for "the
way we were," for a beautiful and full experience. A smile will spread throughout their
whole being as their lives pass in review. And the world will always be a better place,
a happier place, and a more human place because they lived and laughed and loved
here.