Once Again, Today My Life Begins

As I finally turned my home office into something habitable and less distracting, and once again found the perfect spot to hang a picture of me that my dear friend Joshua gave me three years ago when I was “starting a new life”—a picture that has since traveled across continents, countries, and cities with me—I found myself asking a now-familiar question as I begin life afresh once more:When does our life start? When we are conceived? When we are born? When we reach the legal age of adulthood? When we are baptized, for Christians, or when we finish studying the Koran? When we leave our parents’ home? When we become self-sufficient? Perhaps our lives begin many times. At least for me, it feels that way, because I don’t think there is a single answer we can all agree on. Some moments divide our lives into distinct chapters, and when we cross those thresholds, the old ends and the new begins. But when exactly does that beginning occur? Does life begin the moment a chapter closes, even…