Until It Is Carved In Stone

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‘Visiting old cemeteries can be very illuminating. They are so still and silent. So quiet. Old cemeteries remind us that until it is carved in stone, realizing our heart’s desire is possible every day if we recognize what it is that makes us happy.

In Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town a deeply poignant
scene takes place in a graveyard. Ghosts comfort the young heroine, who has recently died in childbirth. Emily, still longing for the life she has just left, wishes to revisit one ordinary “unimportant” day in her life. When she gets her wish, she realizes how much the living take for granted.

Eventually her visit is too much for her to bear. “I didn’t realize,” she confesses mournfully, ” all that was going on and we never noticed…Good-by, world. Good-by Grover’s Corners… Mama and Papa. Good-by 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’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

This is the season for Epiphany, when the renewal of light and revelation are celebrated in the liturgy of the Catholic, Episcopal, and Eastern Orthodox churches. On our new path we seek everyday epiphanies- occasions on which we can experience the Sacred in the ordinary- and come to the awakening, as Emily finally does, that we cannot longer afford to throw away even one “unimportant” day by not noticing the wonder of it all. We have to be willing to discover and then appreciate the authentic moments of happiness available to all of us every day.’ – Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance A Daybook of Comfort and Joy

This hits home on the post about my Grandmother and reflecting the mark she left here on earth after 90 years.

Starting today, let life be about not taking each day for granted.

Let’s not look back in five years and wish we had soaked in each day and memory a little more.

Let’s not let the children be grown adults and have regrets.

Let’s not think an assumingly uneventful day was just a waste of make-up, or unimportant.

Let’s try to appreciate the happiness in the most simple things. Isn’t that really what the message is all about?

Let’s remember that our days are numbered and our life is fleeing away.

An epiphany, maybe?

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Each month Sarah Ban Breathnach, outlines a list of ‘joyful simplicities”, which are things you can do as we embrace the life of Simple Abundance. Here and there, I will share the ones that really strike my fancy.

A Few of January’s Joyful Simplicities:

1. ‘Go through your personal papers at home and organize your desk to get a fresh start on the new year. Discard as much as you can. Hang your new calendar. Try to make your personal space at home where you do paperwork as inviting as possible.’
2. ‘Visit an art supply shop and simply look around. Take in all the different ways you can begin to express yourself: in vivid color, on paper, canvas, in clay. Sound like fun? While you’re there pick up a couple of black-bound artist’s sketchbooks to use for the illustrated discovery journal you’re going to create.’