25 years ago I was on a ventilator in the hospital paralyzed from the neck down with a mysterious illness. College had killed the last of any belief I had in God, along with America - both replaced with some kind of vague relativism and a smug disdain for anything sincere. Unable to move or speak I was conscious but essentially buried in my body. The understanding was I would either not make it at all or - maybe if things turned around - make it and never walk again. I was terrified, at my lowest point, and for the first time in years I started praying. All I can say is God came to me in that moment - or more I was with God and God was with me. It was an experience of profound bliss, sheer joy, torrents of pure love, complete peace and a deep understanding. I knew I would be ok and that even if I didn't make it I'd be ok anyway. It's the first time I experienced something larger than myself and at the same time something that I was part of fully. One important and totally loved drop in an ocean of pure Love.

Purpose is like that. It's the ability to sit with and accept pain and difficulty and challenge. It's knowing things will be ok. And that you're both part of and in service to something infinitely larger than yourself. It's living your life not as a one and done but as a continuum.

It's sad to me that Americans have lost our ability to both accept the challenges and to love each other and everyone else in a transcendent way, to recognize that we are interconnected - though individually we're not all that powerful, we're all here now and part of something that is enormously powerful and has a unique ability to profoundly change the world for the better. Young people are being taught that it's better to anesthetize and shield from difficulty and challenge instead of looking deeply into it, accepting it and finding opportunity in it. That doing the right and loving thing isn't necessary when it's the hard thing, which it so often is. that they're a singular point in time, not both a unique and amazing point in time and part of an infinite wave. They are taught to define their lives through a sense of shame and shaming, not a sense of being profoundly loved and given a unique gift to choose a love bigger than themselves in this lifetime. It is no wonder they are depressed and anxious. How alone and senseless that must feel.

For me it wasn't an easy recovery and I did have to relearn how to walk - but it was a near full one. That experience is the most cherished of my life, and I'd do the whole thing again a million times over. Is every day of my life since a perfect day? Yes and no. Sometimes things are tough and I feel temporarily defeated. But that's the thing about living your life with a sense of purpose and hope. It's buoyant. Happy Spring, Happy Easter everyone.