How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living

by Rob Bell

You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. —Alan Watts

The man’s name is Adam, which means The Human in the original Hebrew language. It’s not a common name like you and I have, it’s more like a generic description. Same with the woman, whose name is Eve, which means Source of Life or Mother of the Living.

They find themselves in the midst of this big, beautiful, exotic, heartbreaking, mysterious, endlessly becoming, unfinished world and they’re essentially told, Do something with it! Make something! Take it somewhere! Enjoy it!

The poet wants us to know that God is looking for partners, people to help co-create the world. To turn this story into a debate about whether or not Adam and Eve were real people or to read this poem as a science textbook is to miss the provocative, pointed, lo...

extraordinary opportunity? What kind of world will they help make? Where will they take it? What will they do with all this creative ...

about them, but it asks questions abo...

Suffering and loss have this extraordinary capacity to alert and awaken us to the gift that life is.

Better to receive some odd looks and have a few people roll their eyes than spend your days wondering, What if I did that . . . ?

There is a difference between craft and success. Craft is when

you stay there, you may continue to feel like you’re dying—

One day a week to remind themselves that they are human beings, not human doings.

When you intentionally slow down,

you instantly see how fast you’ve been moving

the rest of the time. When you stop to pay attention, you learn how muc...

The burrito wasn’t just food, it was an explosion of sensation. The boys weren’t just our kids, they were luminous and ineffably wondrous miracles of flesh and bone. Everything wasn’t just our house and family and friends and life, it was