Gweedore Bay and Islands Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is a protected coastal and marine site located in County Donegal, Ireland. I took this photo September 3, 2018
“This day of your life will never come again.” ~Thomas Merton
Such a simple sentence. And yet, when I allow myself to move beyond thinking about these words and actually feel the truth of them, something profound rises in me.
Reverence for these quiet early morning moments, writing in the dark before the sun rises. Reverence for my puppy who’s taken to curling up around my head on my pillow (his pillow, it seems). Reverence for the breath moving through my body, and the extraordinary gift of being alive. Reverence for the things I plan to do today, and the things I will definitely not do today, with the weight of Merton’s words reminding me of the sacredness of this day.
And yet, how easily I forget. How often my attention drifts to things that, in the larger landscape of my life, matter so little. How easily my thoughts and my energy get pulled toward things that hold so little value. And then, at some point, I notice. Perhaps the noticing is the practice.
I’m reminded that reverence isn’t merely something I feel. It’s something to practice, not by trying to choose the right thoughts, but by letting the unimportant ones pass. It lives in the decisions I make, the way I care for myself, and the ways I contribute to the lives of others. Each choice is an opportunity to honor what truly matters to me.
Merton’s thought stirred me back to Chapter 17 of Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, “Contemplating Death.” Singer says,
“It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life turns out to be death. No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you.”
Singer’s chapter isn’t simply about dying, but more about how we choose to live now, very much in keeping with Merton’s teaching. Merton invites us into the wonder and sacredness of the present moment, while Singer offers us the 10,000-foot view, reminding us of life’s impermanence and the preciousness of the time we have.
“A wise person realizes that at any moment they may breathe out, and the breath may not come back in. It could happen any time, in any place, and your last breath is gone.”
So the question for us is, do we wait until the end of our lives to recognize what death has to teach us, or do we choose, right now, to live with reverence for the sanctity of this one precious day that will never come again… one day at a time?
Reverence.
That’s the word that rose up in me when I stopped thinking about Merton’s words and allowed myself to feel them.
What about you?
“This day of your life will never come again.”
What rises in you?
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