See the Day More Deeply

Look long enough at your life to see the light way down deep in the depths of everything.

Almost twenty years ago, I woke up one morning from a supremely self-piteous night of sleep on a Marine base in Virginia.

I’ve written about that morning in several places, because it was the hinge on my life. In fact, I’ve spent nearly two decades trying to live into the truth of what I saw that morning. I suspect I’ll spend my remaining decades doing more of the same.

It is not such a bad way to live.

What I suddenly saw that morning in a great fit of grace—like Saul becoming Paul on the road to Emmaus, minus the bright light and the booming voice and the blinded eyes—was that everything I believed about existence was wrong. I stepped out of the prison cell of my small, divisive ego and into an awareness of humanity’s hidden kinship. I saw that our sense of separateness is merely an illusion wrought by our woundedness and defensiveness.

However, that wasn’t even the greatest gift of the morning.

The greatest gift was the humility of having been so wrong all along. If this was really that, and if that was really this, and if I was somehow both far less and far more than I’d ever dreamed I was, then what else might I have gotten wrong about the way the world really is?

What might I not be seeing through the veil of my hurriedness and pettiness and piousness?

Almost twenty years after that pivotal morning, I wake in my own bed on an ordinary Thursday morning, which means it’s time to write a post for the coming Wednesday. I reach for my wife to distract me from the discomfort of not knowing what I want to write. My hand finds only an indentation in the mattress. So I pick up my phone instead, but I’m greeted by this quote from Frederick Buechner:

“You are alive. It needn't have been so. It wasn't so once, and it will not be so forever. But it is so now. And what is it like: to be alive in this maybe one place of all places anywhere where life is? Live a day of it and see.”

We will not be alive forever. This is probably not news to you. However, when we think about the end, we tend to think about bucket lists—all the things we’d want to do before our last day, or perhaps even on our last day. However, by all accounts—and I mean the accounts of those who’ve actually come to their last day—it’s quite the opposite:

The dying don't want to do more, they want to be more.

They want to see the twinkle in the eye of a grandchild. They want to smell the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, just as the cream and sugar are added to it. They want to be rolled outdoors so they can feel the kiss of the sun on their cheeks and the brush of the breeze across their skin. They want to taste that sweet, sweet pizza sauce on their favorite pie from the mom-and-pop joint down the street. They want to hear all of the voices constantly murmuring to us of our belovedness—voices like the tweeting of birds at the beginning of the day and the chirping of crickets at the end of it.

So, on this ordinary Thursday morning, I decide that is what I will do too. I’ll just be as present to the day as I can possibly be, and I will tell you about it. Maybe it will be another hinge on my life, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will be a hinge on yours, maybe it won’t.

But at least we'll be seeing the day more deeply.

And just like that, the indentation in the mattress next to me is far more than just an indentation. It is the possibility—indeed the flip-of-a-coin probability—that one day one of us or the other will be no more than an indentation in the mattress, while the other sleeps and wakes and lives on. I am already seeing the day more deeply, and already I can see why sometimes we choose not to do so.

There’s pain down in the depths of things.

I roll over. The bedroom window reveals light already dawning on the eastern horizon, through trees still barren from winter. When did the day grow long enough to be light at this hour? I don’t know but I’m grateful for it now.

We need to be reminded: while there are dark things down in the depths, there’s always, always, always some unexpected light dawning as well.

I begin every day by clearing notifications from my phone—it must be a character defect, because no amount of spiritual growth has altered the compulsion. One notification is a text message from a dear friend. My heart skips a beat. I texted him the day before to tell him how much I respect him and how much I hope our friendship will endure for the long haul. It felt like a vulnerable thing to say. I know there’s not likely to be anything dangerous in his reply. And yet.

Whenever you risk being open you risk being wounded.

I don’t get wounded, and the rest of the day is punctuated by moments of unanticipated pleasure:

• Humankind has invented incredible things, from the first wheel to the first artificial intelligence. However, it will never outdo its single most amazing invention: the hot shower.

• My breakfast every day consists of the same smoothie. Generally speaking, if you do something every day, and you'd still do it on your last day, then it’s probably worth slowing down to truly enjoy it today. I savor every swallow.

• I don bamboo fleece joggers and a bamboo hoodie. Grace can take many forms. Comfortable clothing is one of them. If I arrive in the afterlife and everyone there isn’t clothed in bamboo, I’ll suspect I wound up in the wrong place.

I drive to my son’s tennis meet and, as I leave the neighborhood, I see a man walking his dog. Last week I saw the same man walking his dog twice, just minutes apart. The first time all was well. The second time he was running with the dog lying limply in his arms, a pained and frantic look on the man’s face. It was heartbreaking. Now, they both seem fine.

If you can’t be happy about good things happening to people you don’t even know, you probably can’t be truly happy about anything at all.

When I arrive at the tennis meet, it’s clear there was a miscommunication. Neither team wore white. They’re both wearing exactly the same hue of purple. That’s it, I think. That’s what I saw on that Marine base all those years ago:

We think we’re on separate teams, but really, if we have the eyes to see it, we’re all just wearing the same shade of purple, the color of royalty.

At dinner, it comes up that someone had a dream, and someone else had a dream, and both dreams involved fear of harm befalling the other person. I suppose Freud would say that’s the “Id” and its death-wish rising up from our unconscious. I see it differently.

I see two souls whose love for each other never slumbers.

What is it like to be alive in this one place of all places where life is?

It’s like indentations in the mattress and love that never sleeps, and everything in between. It’s a soul that slips into skin so it can see, smell, taste, hear, and feel as much of it as possible. It’s not wanting to miss any of it.

It’s the grace of getting to be here.

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• When you look deeply into your days, what do you see there? What is your gut reaction to this post? Feel free to share in the comments, and I’ll be sure to reply!

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