I mean I want to be engaged in the sense that I'm mindful of the people and surroundings and culture and the spiritual warfare around me.
I want to establish meaningful connections with the person on the other side of my coffee mug or in the booth across from me at dinner or in the passenger seat of my car.
I want to lean in and connect with the stories being told. I want to actively console the sorrows being shared. I don't want to go through conversations absentmindedly anymore.
Because after two decades of being distracted by tomorrow and by my phone and by what's happening in my peripheral, it's about time I was engaged fully in these moments.
I just finished A Hobbit A Wardrobe and A Great War by Joseph Loconte. It's a book about J.R.R. Tolkien's friendship with C.S. Lewis and how the events of WWI shaped their views on life, transformed their writing, and grew them together as best friends.
I came across a quote in one of the last chapters from Lewis about what true friendship is and he says:“You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress: better to fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.”
I don't think we'll ever be fully engaged in the lives of others by staring at them through Instagram or Snapchat or by stalking their musical tastes on Spotify (all of which I'm fully guilty).
I think engagement happens when we turn off our phones and laptops and TVs and fight beside the people we love and want to know more….
Stop for just a second and hear Him gently whisper, "wake up to the life around you, my child. Awaken your senses to the people and places and my presence in this life, and I will wrap you up in light."
That’s as good a New Year’s resolution as you are going to get and I am certain that if we do engage fully, life will come at us with more vitality and dazzling color and with more surprises and opportunities. And you might just consider writing about it.