genuine life?

Life can feel very empty if I stop responding to the hectic demands of the urban lifestyle.  Even a moment of stillness can reveal an abyss where I expected life.

At times, I try to keep it from showing by not pausing, by refusing the invitation to contemplative life.  Otherwise I cover the void by reflecting on life only in a structured place where I will be given positive and pleasant answers.  I might even get as far as confronting the void with some technique which affirms the emptiness as good.

But I am still alienated; I ask: "Am merely a shell of activity?  Is there no 'me' that has life?"

Going back to the ancient sage, John, we find that he writes continually about "life" and uses adjectives to distinguish this life from mere existence, from the empty shell of life.  He did this in his narrative recording his three-year experience of being with his spiritual mentor.

He also wrote a guide to the spiritual life.  "The life appeared; we have seen it and testify (give evidence as in a court case) to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal (genuine, authentic, full) life."  He is emphatic in explaining that the guidance he gives is trustworthy because he has witnessed it for himself.  "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of life."

He promises not to tell us to pursue things he hasn't authenticated for himself.  But he also promises that he does have something worth telling: real life.  So maybe there is another way; maybe I need not live with the big black hole at my core?