Glimpses In Presence

 

Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful

for anybody to realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life
while they live it? – every, every minute?

From Emily’s soliloquy in Our Town by Thornton Wilder

The quote above occurs after Emily has died and been afforded an opportunity to “see” life, in its beauty and wonder.

I was reminded of this soliloquy recently while following a thread of real presence. Real presence is ironically that showing up, as practically nothing physical or egotistic in moments of life; real presence is the ability to simply be in our fullness of love and grace, no encumbrances of expectation or reward. 

And so it is with death…

Emily’s ability to “show up” in ghost-like lightness of being affords the view of reality in realization of magnificence of creation. 

Is this earth too wonderful to realize? Must we die before we appreciate? 

I retain a hope that in contemplation, in that stillness at the center of all life, there is an absence of obstructed vision and a “presence” of something so radiant and sacred. I long for that kind of nothingness which is everything!

Perhaps these are glimpses; perhaps the glimpses are enough. May we gather them minute by minute.