A ZIG ZAG LIFE

    No human being exists apart from the entire human family. True, many people experience rejection, isolation from a close relationship with family or friends, and in their pain have no sense of being beloved, much less of belonging. Nonetheless we all exist within the human family, a species unlike any other on earth, for we alone have been created in the image and likeness of God, we alone are endowed with an immortal soul, which itself gives form to the body, and is the actual “I” of our being, thus while the body does die the “I” does not. Communication, the ability by word, gesture, to communicate with at least one other human being throughout the day, beyond merely, for example, asking for a coffee in the coffee shop, is critical to alleviate the isolation and loneliness of living without the intimacy of love, of being of some import to another human being. Besides hobbling our emotional, intellectual, physical health, loneliness impedes spiritual development as well. How

                             AN INTERRUPTED ZIG, A WASTEFUL ZAG, A RENEWED ZIG Recently I was asked by my spiritual director: why Zig Zag? Zig Zag refers to abrupt turns to left or right, that is deviating from a straight line or path. In the context of these essays to zig means to return to the right path and to zag means to deviate from it. The path, for all the baptized, is to respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him and we do so with the help of the Holy Spirit by following Jesus’ footsteps which is to follow Him through each moment of life, through the doorway of death, into the heart of the Holy Trinity, when our pilgrimage life on earth will be ended and, indeed, we will have eternal rest. Eternal rest not being a lack of activity for within the Communion of Saints, until the end of chronological time, we will intercede for our brothers and sisters still on pilgrimage and also, we will, with all the Angels and Saints be actively adoring, lauding, loving with absolute joy