Every Moment is Unique

Do you remember days or do you remember moments in those days?

There is a story from the book SPIRITUAL LITERACY (Touchstone Books)
by authors Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. It is about a Brooklyn cigar
store manager named Oggie Rand. Oggie has an unusual habit...at
precisely eight o'clock each morning, he photographs the front of the
store. Always at exactly the same time and from exactly the same spot.
Every morning. Oggie collects his daily snapshots in photograph albums,
each labeled by date. He calls his project his "life's work."

One day Oggie showed his albums to a friend. He had not told his friend about his unusual hobby. Flipping the pages of the albums, the man noticed in amazement that the pictures were all the same.

Oggie watched him skim through the pictures and finally replied, "You'll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend. The pictures are all of the same spot, but each one is different from every other one. The differences are in the detail. In the way people's clothes change according to season and weather. In the way the light hits the street. Some days the corner is almost empty. Other times it is filled with people, bikes, cars and trucks. It's just one little part of the world, but things take place there, too, just like everywhere else."

This time Oggie's friend looked more carefully at each picture. No two were alike. Every picture was unique, just as every moment is unique. Through a series of photographs, he became conscious of one of life's great truths -- that each minute that passes is special, even sacred.

Author Henry Miller said, "The moment one gives close attention to
anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself."

And those are the moments we'll remember; the ones for which we stopped everything else long enough to pay close attention.

The lesson for me is this: to pay close attention to each moment. If I look closely enough, I know I'll see that each moment is unique and sacred. And I suspect it will be these moments...not whole days, weeks, months or years...that I will finally remember.

Perhaps much of the happiness and joy we find in life comes from taking
care of the moments.

I'm holding the high watch...in this moment!
Rev.Donna