When we created The Art of Elderhood course, my dear friend Paul Browde said something that has stayed with me deeply.
He observed that in relationships, we often forget.
We forget the miracle of the person sitting across from us. We forget their preciousness. We forget what their presence means to us.
And then something happens. There is an illness. A diagnosis. A loss. A separation. A moment when we realize we might lose them.
And suddenly, we remember.
We remember the miracle. We remember what matters. We remember how deeply we love them. We remember how much they mean to us.
What struck me was the question that followed:
What if we remembered before then?
What if remembering the miracle and everything else was not something we reserved for moments of crisis and what if it became a daily practice to look upon people with reverence?
Martin Buber spoke of moments of encounter.
Moments when we move beyond the ordinary and meet another person in their fullness.
We all know these moments.
They can happen in nature. They can happen while listening to music.
A sunset suddenly takes our breath away. A familiar piece of music brings tears to our eyes.
Nothing has changed, and yet everything feels different.
We have entered what I call the Zone of the Encounter.
The colors seem brighter. The sounds feel richer. Life becomes more vivid. We feel deeply connected.
And the same thing can happen in our relationships.
There are moments when we truly see one another. Moments when we remember that the person before us is not a role, not a function, not someone we have figured out.
They are a mystery.
A living, evolving human being. Someone whose presence in our life is not guaranteed. Someone whose journey intersects with ours for a precious and limited time.
In those moments, something shifts. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. The familiar becomes sacred, and reverernt.
Perhaps reverence is not a feeling that arrives on its own.
Perhaps it is a way of paying attention. A way of remembering. A way of meeting life, and one another, with fresh eyes.
The more life experience I have, the more I realize that reverence is not only meant for sunsets, symphonies, or sacred places.
It is also meant for the people we love.
The question is not whether they are worthy of reverence.
The question is whether we will remember.