If today were as it should be—peaceful, crisp, bustling with the business of all of us getting along with one another—there would be plenty for the papers to report.
Just now, for instance, Sean, walking his dog (Ruby) and a friend’s dog (Frankie) came into where I am (the sandwich shop Sean runs) to tell me about the funeral he (Sean) had just come from. An old friend. Nothing tragic, but still.
Meanwhile, Ruby hunted for food and Frankie accepted the vigorous tummy rub I offered.
If today did no more than carry itself from morning to night, connecting the chain of time from now to forever you might lie in the grass and read a book or spend time with friends as a way to honor how life is the opposite—or something better than the opposite—of death.
Sean tells me too of a young man who works for him, a guy who left his failing nation with a friend. The two spent years walking across a continent until, along the way, the thugs of some terror zone put them in prison demanding money neither had. Get it from your parents, they were told and they shot the friend to make their point. Sean’s employee made it out somehow but now, says Sean, he struggles to smile.
Is today a day for you? I hope so. Let it be one in which you make happy news. For yourself. For others. Before we all get reduced to history.