"I have one talent and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. Don't be old. Don't be stale." Abraham Joshua Heschel

I came across this quote in The Zookeeper's Wife a book by Diane Ackerman that I am reading for a book group I am a part of at church. Rabbi Heschel is known as a writer of Hasidic mysticism and is quoted in this book. The book tells the story of a couple who ran a zoo in Warsaw during WWII and used the zoo as a place to hide those who were escaping through the Underground. The people who were being moved to safety seemed at times to be hiding in plain sight but the Nazis seemed unable to see them. Perhaps it was because they had lost the ability to be surprised.

When I read this I thought about how much energy can go into trying NOT to be surprised. We plan, we rework plans, we set agendas, in which there is no room to be surprised. Indeed, that is often the goal. We say:"We want no surprises here."

And yet, when I think about some of the most exciting and memorable times I have experienced, they almost always involved surprise. There have been the happened upon place in a well planned vacation that delivers the true essence of a city, a country, a people. A stop to ask a question of a stranger can deliver a gift of conversation that changes a whole day. Straying from the well prepared to-do list can bring just the spark of creativity that solves a problem that has been stumping everyone on a work team.Even taking a different route to work can brings surprises that change the shape of our day.

I tend to think of surprises as the way the Spirit is present to shake up our living. Surprises jar us into the moment, the precious moment, that reminds us that we are alive. We are not in our past and we are not yet in our future…..we are here, right now, this very blessed minute. Surprises can do that even when we are not happy about their arrival.

My prayer for you, and for myself, is that today holds a few surprises. May there be a surprise or two that helps us to know that the Spirit is traveling with us on what we might, if left to our devises, turn into a dull, no-letter day through our careful planning. As the Spirit brushes by our well ordered day, may each of us hear the quiet whisper in our ear: "Surprise!"

It could keep us from being old and stale. It could make all the difference in the world.