Atha

17 years ago I was 18. I submitted my deposit check to attend THE Colorado College (into the hands of MLB, who would later be my supervisor) and drove home, through Denver. My mom and I stopped for lunch and saw lots of EMS drive by, and said a little prayer for wherever they were heading.

When we got home, I turned on the TV and my heart sank as the same footage was on every channel.

From that moment on, life was different.

Life keeps changing like this. Waves of grief, moments of stillness. Unimaginable things that happen, then fade, then become commonplace.

Do you remember the time before "school shooting" was a part of your vocabulary? When the biggest drama in high school was... drama?

I do.

In many ways, today is one of those days. It is a before and an after. Remembering the before, mourning the after. Maybe this isn't a bookmark in your life, and that's just fine. Maybe for you today is mourning the before, and relishing the after. Your bookmarks are different.

But here we all are, awash in the sea of forgetting the most important moment, the now, as we all face different directions and focus on what once was or what might be. What does it take for you to be in this moment? To see the full spectrum of your experience?

I forget 'now' almost every moment of almost every day. I think that's a natural, normal human condition. But every once and awhile, sometimes with the perspective of before and after, from the path I've walked, from the open field in front of me, I realize that this is it, baby.

Atha.

Amen.