April 5, 2021
Last night there was an earthquake. A magnitude-4.0 in Inglewood that was enough to wake me. Feeling an earthquake is still a new thing for me. It’s strange. I grew up with tornadoes and floods, but not earthquakes. Here in California, earthquakes are nothing to write home about most of the time.
As scary as earthquakes can be, I found this one somewhat comforting—crazy, I know. Sometimes the divine speaks in uncommon ways, and for me, this was one of them. Through an actual earthquake.
A theme of my life as of late has consisted of two words: awake and aware. Being awake is having my eyes open to what’s happening around me. It’s being alert and paying attention to the physical and divine workings in the world. Being aware is more about what’s happening inside of me—in my soul, mind, and body. Awake and aware. Seeing what’s out there and in here. Taking inventory of the happenings and ripple effects of actions large and small.
It takes a lot of effort. Maybe that’s why so many people aren’t awake or aware. Maybe that’s why it’s a state that’s hard to maintain.
Yesterday was Easter. It might have been my most joyful Easter in years. Top three, for sure. That’s saying a lot because I wasn’t even with my family this year. I stayed in Los Angeles instead of flying back to Louisiana.
Some years, I feel the weight of Easter and all it means. I take on the heaviness that comes with reflecting on Christ crucified for my sake. I didn’t ask him to do that, but I’m mighty glad he did. This year I felt the joy of Easter more than the weight. I felt the lightness and freedom. The exhilaration of this weekend doesn’t make sense if you don’t believe the Bible—I get it. But to me, it’s real. All of it. The joy took me beyond myself.
I felt both awake and aware this Easter. My eyes were open to the suffering and victories of the people I’m surrounded by—and how Jesus being alive speaks to those things. My heart was attuned to the elation of my soul despite my tired body. I could sense the tension within myself along with the peace that covered it.
Do these sensations and certainties last, though? Will I wake up next Sunday with the same jubilation and attentiveness? Is the joy of Easter only enough for the day itself?
Maintaining a state of awareness is arduous. It’s often easier to cruise through the days without paying mind to the details of my inner and outer world. But is that really living? Or merely going through the motions?
At the end of the day, I believe God offers life. Eternal, yes, but not just for when we make our exit from planet earth. The eternal is breaking in to the temporal. Life abundant is busting in through the cracks of life on earth.
This is the story of Easter. God is ushering in his divinity into our ordinary, messy, complicated lives. My main problem with this? It is hard to stay awake. Paying attention to God at work takes effort. He knows this, I think. He speaks to it. He encourages me in the midst of hard work so I can keep going.
In the Bible, when Jesus died, it says, “the earth shook, the rocks split” (Matthew 27:51). An earthquake. Given that our California earthquake happened in the early morning hours after Easter Sunday, I couldn’t help but make the connection.
I was awake. This shaking was my urge to stay awake.
When I woke up this morning, not a single part of my mind went to the earthquake. It could have been a forgotten dream for all I knew. It was only when I got to work and checked my email that I saw a news headline about it in my inbox.
How quickly I forget.
How hard it is to stay aware.
How necessary it is to be awake.
If a physical earthquake that I felt with my entire body can slip so easily from my mind, how much easier is it to let the God I cannot see fall away from my awareness?
Last night’s Inglewood quake was enough to shake my eyes open and align my mind with whatever God is up to. It’s my reminder that this is the time to be vigilant, to watch, to take note of the divine and his power at work in our world and in my own heart.
“Don’t forget, Alexa. Remember your life. Be aware of the richness of it. Be awake enough to truly live it.”
This, spoken to me through the shaking earth, is yet another display of divine love. A new world breaking through—what joy to actually feel it.
Alexa Babin 
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