I spoke those words in high school. When I played Emily Webb in Our Town. It was a beautiful play and a beautiful experience (although kissing a boy and getting married were a little too embarassing for me to want to do it again). Yet somehow, I missed a lot of what it had to teach.

I was looking at some pictures today on a friend's website. He had been to Zambia and had these amazing photos of sunsets and beautiful places. Some of his other pictures of just spending time with friends were pretty amazing too. It was through these pictures that I suddenly realized something about myself, and about others.

Life moves so fast. You just keep going through your daily routine each day and as Emily Webb points out, you never really realize what life is while you're living it. I think I have this tendency to not notice the beauty of this world, the amazing works of God, and the awesome joy that comes out of everyday life as much as I should. It seems like it's not until I'm in a new place or getting to know a new person that I start to really pay attention to what's going on around me. It's sad, but the sun, the stars, the grass, and the trees somehow look so much more beautiful when I'm walking among them in Italy or Switzerland than when they're sitting in my own bakyard. When someone takes the time to hold the door for me, I don't realize how special that is. When someone says "hi" to me in the hallway or buys me lunch, I don't notice how important that is. Maybe I'm just like everyone else, and as the stage manager explains, I don't realize life as I live it - every, every minute. "Saints and poets, maybe. They do some."

Do I realize life as I live it? - every, every minute? I sure hope I do.

Everyone should read Our Town by Thorton Wilder. I mean, just read this:

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being."

And this:

"So—people a thousand years from now—this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century.—This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying."

And this:

"[P]eople are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome."

And this:

"Get it out of your heads that music's only good when it's loud. You leave loudness to the Methodists."

And this:

"Hast --yaow! Look at him, fellas --he looks scared to death. Yaow! . . . don't look so innocent, you old geezer. We know what you're thinking."

And THIS!

"Good-bye Grovers Corners…. Good-bye to clocks ticking… and Mama's sunflower. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths… and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you! I didn’t realize…all that was going on and we never noticed?"

So I was at work the other day, maybe a week ago, and I decided that although I may not attend your regular, run-of-the-mill rodeo, I would be highly entertained by a rodeo filled with llamas and emus. I mean just imagine it! A bucking, wild, belligerent emu doing everything in its power to get the crazy rider off of it's back! Llamas doing jumping tricks and trotting around the stadium gracefully while cowgirls and cowboys do backflips and somersaults off their backs. It would be simply amazing! I googled "llama rodeo" only to discover that there is no such thing currently. Llamas do make appearances at rodeos but only for the purpose of petting farms. It's sad really. I hope I have some distant relative in New Zealand that will leave me a very lucrative llama and emu farm...then my dream will come true.

I kid, I kid. That's not really my dream. Gosh, I don't really know what my dream is sometimes. Have you ever reached that point in your life where you've thought you've had it all figured out and then suddenly understood that your life is going in a completely different direction? It's like when your driving down the freeway and you suddenly realize that you haven't been paying attention to where you're going in the last 30 minutes. Where did that time disappear to? What was it that finally woke you up to the fact that the road has taken a few turns, and you are no longer in the same place, going the same direction you were before? You've passed by exits and entrances, other cars and the people inside of them, villages, cities, towns, homes; and it all went by without you noticing. And you ask yourself, "where am I and how did I get here?"

I don't know how I've lost sight of my dreams, my visions. I don't know where they've gone and why it was so easy for me to toss them aside. :o) I've been given renewed hope, however. There are some people in your life that just consistently believe in you. People who know that whatever you set your mind and heart to doing is worth doing and is totally 100% achievable. Everyone needs someone like that in your life...and if you don't have one of those people I have an excellent recommendation.

Sometimes I wish He wouldn't believe in my as much as He does. Sometimes it seems like it would be way easier to just give up dreaming and hoping...like living a life without drive and ambition would be easy! But, then I realize, that a life like that would be boring, meaningless, and far more painful than the one I'm living. And I realize that hope, in the end, breeds a joy that can never be substituted by simply settling for what everyone expects of you. It's exceeding their expectations and going after what's been promised you. It's believing in that desire that has been placed in your heart...that desire that seems so far-fetched and unlike you that to pursue it would be sheer madness. But I guess, everyone needs a little insanity in their lives sometimes. It's what makes heroes out of nobodies, after all.

I need to go to Bible college where and when the Lord calls me.