The Moment

Early this morning, before I had time to recover from the hectic relay race of our morning routine, God presented me with a gift. It was the gift of seeing beyond the ordinary. He carved out for me a moment in time that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, but now it is and forever will be, etched in my mind. It is a piece of time where you say quietly to yourself, “I will remember this moment forever.”

Seven children--best friends, new friends, brothers and sisters--packed together like sardines in my much too small car. In a flurry of good-byes and kisses, they raced from the noisy confines of the car unaware that they were about to become my moment. As they were leaving, one flew in for another kiss and then it was silent.

The morning was sunny; not the bright, glaring sun of summer, but the sunlight of autumn-- crisp, warm, and inviting. I watched them as they made their way across the school yard loaded down with backpacks and lunch boxes. They split into groups of twos and threes. Two walked hand in hand, others ran, and one leaped into the air-- reaching for the sky.

The leaves fell in great numbers from the trees that surrounded them. Soon they were merely silhouettes. Walking, running, dancing silhouettes with a backdrop of warm sunshine and leaves that floated and swirled through the crisp air. Seven children and a thousand leaves, whirling and twirling in a magical world, where there was no sense of time, or distance, or obligation. 

Silently, I took all of this in. The color of the day, the burnished leaves tossing about in the early morning sky and the seven silhouettes finding their way past the ordinary into what seemed for a time, extraordinary. In the midst of this, I found my moment.

Alone in my car, in the quiet of the morning, God gave me a glimpse of innocence. At a time when things change in the blink of an eye, when children seem to grow up much too fast and it takes all of a parents strength to let them venture into the world alone, when the media bombards us with doom and gloom instead of a spirit of optimism and hope, and when families are rushed and losing touch with their greatest source of joy--each other, this glimpse was indeed a privilege.

It was a moment in time where the world had not yet taken hold. Their joy was pure and untarnished. It was a joy that did not come from things-- it came from just being. This gift, disguised as ordinary and routine, was God’s way of reminding me to be still. It is in stillness that we find our true moments.

So, quietly, in the early morning hours of this autumn day, I celebrated my moment.

Too quickly, five of them passed through the school doors, the quiet miracle of the moment behind them. The last two stragglers stayed behind, chasing leaves that were falling from the sky like snowflakes. For quite some time, they danced around the trees; with arms raised and heads thrown back in laughter. It echoed back to me, above the sound of the wind and the leaves blowing across the pavement.

After some hesitation, the two windswept explorers picked up their backpacks and headed toward the door, stopping occasionally to grasp at stray leaves which seemed to call them back… beckoning them to stay a bit longer. They were about to cross the threshold back to the ordinary and as they reached for the handles of the large steel and glass doors the two silhouettes turned around and stood for a while longer. Without even realizing it, they, too, were having a moment.