They’re really quite miraculous, but so very easy to miss. There is often a silence before something immense and filled with impact happens. It’s that pregnant with possibilities moment. And then at the end of something momentous, there’s an instant that is the moment after delivery, the no longer pregnant reality of delivery that is equally profound.

Hold that silence. Breathe it in. Just before sunset. Just before dawn. Just before music begins. Just after it ends.

Classical musicians are trained to do it, maybe not in those words, but nonetheless… but so many musicians are not… they never let the note carry into the ether before crashing down into the next… or more likely turning immediately to talk about what they’re going to play next (as if you can’t set up two songs in a row.)

Keeping your eye on the prize might also include savoring and celebrating that prize. Those moments of awareness change life. They are a pause for an inhalation. Before night falls or day breaks. After incredible Beauty or unthinkable tragedy. They stop life and magnify it. It’s a sin to miss the Peace in them. And when have you ever heard me use that word?