Cognizant

Sometimes I look out upon the world and I wonder who's really alive - who's awake and who is still sleeping. It's that feeling that everyone around you just may happen to be a robot. Cognizant or not. And perhaps each and every one of us feels that way at times? Is everyone else real?

I suppose we're all philosophers in that way. And if you've never dared to consider life so deeply, then, could it be, you've never really awakened? For indeed, we're all asleep till we're made alive in Christ. But once alive, how then do you live and move and breathe? With what awareness do you go through life? And if with none, then I challenge you to sink deep, deep, deep into your cognizance. For this is what separates us from beasts.

We can think.

And thinking must not merely be limited to choices. No. That requires little to no use of the mind. Rather, if we are indeed alive and capable of consideration, and if we are created in the image of our creator, whose mind inspired ours, then oughtn't we consider the world around us, and more importantly, the people around us?

Dive deep.

Instead, since those around us must not be robots, but cognizant human beings, then every person we encounter, must, in the words of C.S. Lewis, be a immortal, just as ourselves.

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors" (The Weight of Glory).

And isn't that just incredible?

When I consider such a thought, each person I encounter becomes something of a wonder. All physical appearances seems to slide off like clothing or mud. What remains, is an essence of sorts - a true character. A character comprised of experience, wisdom, foolishness, kindness and stupidity. Something of a mix, with different percentages of each, you might say, comprising a whole. And to think that each is such a unique thumbprint, each designed specifically by the Almighty.

How can, in light of this, one ever treat another human being as a robot? But instead as something eternal... outlasting... with either salvation or damnation in store? And I do pray, that it be the former rather than the latter. For if we are indeed, such intelligent creatures, then perhaps we're all subtly aware of the gaping, gnawing hole that is our desperate desire to know if there is more to this life, and perhaps the next, than, eating, breathing and pleasure.

And if indeed there is, then how much more important is it, to find the Source of greater purpose?