OK, so I've been writing this blog for a few years, now, and I've never mentioned Brother Curtis, though I think of him almost every day.

So, confession time: he is a monk who said something I have never been able to forget, and it speaks to the sheer dailiness of Easter. The story:

I was at a mostly silent retreat at a favorite monastery in Cambridge, MA over ten years ago. (Explore www.ssje.org for great resources). The leader, Brother Curtis Almquist, was giving us a few words in the morning before turning us over to that sheer luxury: an open day -- to pray, to walk, to write, to just be.

I remember his face, shining with wonder as he addressed us. He had the look of anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve. He said: "I don't know... but maybe, just maybe, you might get a whole day today..." He paused, as if he almost could not imagine something so vast and wonderful. He continued: "And if you do get...a whole day...what will you do with it?"

That was it... soon thereafter we moved individually into the cold December morning. He had been utterly serious, and utterly honoring about not taking the experience of one more day of life for granted. He suggested we quite naturally look at each day as a prospect, not as a guarantee. This was not morbid on his part, but a mix of realism, given life's vagaries, plus amazement, and clear gratitude. Not to mention the implicit vow to not waste the prodigal gift of a whole day.

I think of Br. Curtis every time my husband and I leave a place we love and go to annually: Might we get a whole year? Might we get to come back? I don't take that for granted. And... was I truly present while we were here this year? Even when I go to the eye doctor, and he says to come back in six months, I think hmmm... "Curtis." Six months... might we get a whole six months? I muttered something to this effect to a doctor recently, regarding another colonoscopy in a year... something like, "we'll, if we're all here next February..." I trailed off, always without Curtis' gravitas or context. The doctor said a little snappishly, "We'll, I certainly don't plan on going anywhere..."

We never plan on going somewhere. But things obviously do end: health, jobs, marriages, lives, loves. In small and not-so-small ways, each day ends, and, if we are lucky, another day unfolds for us to behold, like the small, miraculous Easter that it is. One one level, the word "resurrection" means "again standing up." No small thing, actually.

The invitation to behold: That is what is at the heart of my Br. Curtis ruminations. Yes, sometimes I veer into fatalism and worry and my own sheer weirdness. But worry is not what he originally meant.

I think he was saying: "Behold... see what God has given you, right now, today. It is astonishing. Don't miss it.  Because it will not come around again."