On Friday evening I saw Thornton Wilder’s classic story “Our Town”. It was a lovely, simple yet innovative take on this tale of the ordinariness and extraordinary nature of life. While it has been staged by high school,college and professional actors for decades, its essential wisdom continues to sneak up on those who watch its unfolding. The home town of Grover’s Corners lives in each of us and though the small town, turn of the 20th century touch points might seem sweet and from a far-gone day, the truth that lies at the heart of the story does not. In three acts, Wilder brilliantly reminds us that our life’s journeys are pure gift not to be taken lightly.

It is the young girl Emily whose final monologue ends the play that takes all we have seen in the hour or more before and sums up the play’s message. She finds herself in the cemetery fallen victim to the glorious and dangerous act of childbirth. Looking back on the life now yanked from her she speaks to her mother, also dead, whose grave is near hers. “Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Let’s really look at one another! It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?”

These words never fail to reach out and grab me and like a new convert at a revival, I pledge to be awake, aware, attentive to the details and beauty of my every day living once again. Have you had such experiences? Perhaps it was a brush with illness or death. Perhaps it was an overwhelming experience of beauty or love. Perhaps it was seeing a newborn placed in your arms, one you promised to watch so closely, so intently that you wouldn’t miss a day or moment of their growing, their living.

But life has a way of tripping us up, doesn’t it? Of placing things like laundry and cleaning out gutters and washing up dishes in our path. There becomes the minutiae of the every day that can numb us into sleepwalking. We can make these acts, which could also be holy moments if executed with intention, into the things that must be done before we have the time, or the inclination or the spirit to get around to ‘really’ living.

This week as we in the Christian household begin our slow walk toward Palm Sunday,then Holy Week and finally Easter,we will once again hear the familiar telling of Jesus’ entry in Jerusalem. I wonder about how he felt as he made his way with this wayward bunch of friends into what would become the final days of his life. Did he try to urge them to be awake to the preciousness of life? Was he aware of how each moment with them was a gift? Did the bread and wine they shared taste better than it ever had before? Did he notice the color of their eyes, the lines in their faces, the fear in their eyes? Did they notice his? I wonder.

Lately, I have been in the presence of many families who are engaged in the acts of final goodbyes. It is holy and sacred time. As these loved ones share the stories of their beloved who has passed from this living, the telling is rarely of profound or momentous accomplishments. The stories I hear with greater regularity are those of times around kitchen tables or on cabin decks. They are the stories of favorite foods or silly songs shared while fire danced on faces, illuminating the beauty of the simple. They are tales of kindness to a child, compassion to an elder, gentleness across a neighbor’s fence. This is the stuff of life and in the end what we cherish most.

“Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?” May we all treasure something small, something simple today. If only for a moment.