Do any Human beings ever realize life while they live it?- every,every minute?

- Emily in Our Town

At this point in Thornton Wilder's play, Emily is a ghost; she has just died and is allowed a brief visit back to life. The godlike stage manager gives, of course, the only real answer to her question: "No." But after a pause he adds,  "The saints and poets, maybe- they do some."

I like this definition of saints and poets: they are everyone who has some capacity to realize life while they live it. That definition can include you and me, no matter who we are or how busy.

We don't have to be compared to Albert Schweitzer or have published books of poetry either. We just need, as much as we can, to realize life, now.

How do we realize life? Emily's ghost, who is allowed to return to Earth for her twelfth birthday, answers for us as she speaks to her mother who, still in human life, is- as mothers do and need to do- prattling on to her about eating slowly and keeping warm: "Oh, Mama, just look at me one moment as though you really saw me."

And then to the stage manager Emily says, "I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed."

Yes, it's all going on right now, today, this minute. Do you notice? Take Emily's advice: Look into the eyes of those you are with as though you were really seeing them, that is, attending to them as fully as you can, being aware as much as possible of all that is going on in the moment.

Join saints and poets. Today look at someone as though you were really seeing him or her.

Excerpt from Quiet Mind: One-Minute Retreats from a Busy World by David Kundtz