Have you ever caught a glimpse of the divine?

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a group of people and had one image stand out?  Have you ever looked at a person and felt their smile like the sun on a warm day, and when you smile back the sunbeams become golden?  Have you ever thought that if you were Adam then absolutely positively this other person was Eve, created by God just for you?

Have you ever felt the pain of deep, whole, true love, love that is lost, love that is completely lost?

What do you do, then, when against all hope you get a glimmer of a chance at the same thing again?  What if you find Eve, but you know that this will, ultimately, one way or another, result in another loss for you as deep or deeper than the first?  What would you do then?

I'll tell you what I do.  I feel a nibble of the pain, and then I suck it up, and I build up my courage, and I look at the sunbeam as best I can, and I try to soak up every single little bit of it - the sight, the sound, the taste, the feel, the smell, every moment of it, for as long as it lasts.  I try to linger in every single moment, neither looking back nor looking forward, and I try to stop time and stay and dawdle for every single fraction of a second.

This probably makes me look pretty goofy when I do it, and pretty stupid, but when you catch sight of the meteor glowing across the sky you don't take your eye off it.  When you see the diver spinning towards the water you don't blink.  And by God if an angel floats in front of you you don't think of yesterday or tomorrow, you don't even think, you just be, for as long as you can, where you are.

Because time *will* move on, and this may be the first time you feel the sunbeam, or it may be one of many times, or it may be the last time you feel it.  So you stop, and you gaze, and you hope that you never lose the memory, because as long as you have that then you have more than most people ever have.

And if you experience the loss then you grieve, and you take all the time it takes, and then you wait for the next chance to catch a glimpse of the divine.