A local priest, when discussing the Liturgy of the Eucharist — which never changes, from day to day, week to week, year to year; in other words, something repeated hundreds and then thousands of times — discussed how it might be easy simply to drift into auto-pilot (auto-priest?) and run through the liturgy without thinking, without really being there. He told us his secret for preventing such rote recitation is a prayer in which he asks for the grace to say the Mass as if it were his first Mass, his last Mass, his only Mass.
It might not be a bad way to approach every task.
I think of the excitement I felt every single “first” day I have had in the classroom: the first day at a new school, the first day ever in front of the classroom, the first day of a new school year, the first day back from a long break. Each and every first day has its own unique excitement, but the fact that it is exciting is the common element. By day sixty-five, that excitement seems somehow to have vanished, or at least diminished. The result is sometimes drudgery.
I think of the excitement I felt the first time I held our daughter. Such a charge, such a responsibility, such a humbling moment. Yet as the years pass and the fussing and independence increase, that energy sometimes seems a little tired. The daily routine, with its predictability, numbs the sense of wonder if one is not careful. Children are blessings, but the sometimes simply wear one down, and while I feel like a “bad parent” for admitting it, I’m sure it will happen with our son as well. It’s simply easier to focus on the now, which can be frustrating, than the thrill that still resonates but sometimes seems hushed.
I think of the heart-stopping moment when I asked K to marry me, and while I love her more now than I did then, and will love her more tomorrow — more deeply, more maturely — than I do today, there are moments when we grate on each other. It’s only natural. Still, in those moments, for the briefest flicker of time, that thrill seems gone. I know it will return; I know it never left; but in my human weakness, I can still focus on that moment and wallow in it for a while.
So what if I could live every moment as if it were my first, last, and only in front of a classroom; my first, last and only with my children; my first, last, and only with my wife. What if I could simply remember to reach each second as if it were my first, last, and only? Could I stand the intensity? The joy?