Have you ever had one of those moments where the curtains draw back, the light is blinding, and you are filled with a revelation that you’ve had before, but it’s amazing all the same?
I’m not talking about waking up this morning. I mean a moment of epiphany when, all of a sudden, you are struck dumb by the immensity of it all. The whole thing. The doughnut and the hole. Kind of like your twenty-first birthday, but even bigger. Even bigger than fifty.
It can happen at any time. One moment, you’re going about your day and the next, you look at something and it’s as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Like King Kong on top of the Empire State Building. Like a satellite moving across the sky. Like a cannonball from the high dive.
I’m talking about the moment you find yourself looking at your hand or arm or something and you are completely floored, because it is actually holding a glass. That it works. That it obeys your will. You raise the glass to your lips, just to be sure. That taste! Those tastebuds! The blood in your veins. The connections in your mind. It all works! Cells reproducing, communicating, your stomach digesting. These very thoughts! What a miracle!
You don’t know what to think. You look away and gaze into the backyard. You see flowers, bushes, the grass. How do they do it?! And, then, even more profound, Why?!
It is truly a moment of revelation and wonderment. You’re suddenly on philosophical overload and everything begins to take on a kind of glow. You lift your eyes to the heavens and begin to contemplate the mysteries of the universe. How is this possible? Who figured all this stuff out? Why are we here?
You turn to your wife. A wonderful innocence shines out of you, as you say, “Have you ever wondered why we’re here?” And, she says, ‘Honey, what about lunch?”
In that moment, you drop back to everyday reality like a stone. These thoughts are so huge; you can’t entertain them for long. Not only that, but, put into words, they sound either naïve and pretentious or like it’s time you took your medication. It seems only people with special training can deal with these questions – monks, astronauts, and fifth grade teachers.
And, yet, it is a miracle. And, an ongoing one. In every moment of forever, this has been happening.
• Dinosaurs? Yes.
• The Renaissance? Yes.
• 1987, when the Twins won the series? Yes.
It has never stopped. Don’t even start wondering about the beginning and why, in the first place, all this stuff happened.
Seeing the world in a grain of sand or the miracle of life in the most mundane of occurrences is the kind of thinking that slows you down and warms you, but like the sun, you don’t want to look directly at it, for more than a moment.
Special training is really not required, but it’s better to start out with this as a passing thought, that you can contemplate, whenever you like, just not for too long. One that will warm your heart, make you think, and keep things growing.
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