Look around yourself, look at other people near you.  Some are in their cars isolated from the world hell-bent for leather to get somewhere.  Some are walking on the sidewalk heads down fingers furiously texting.  Texting!  10 years ago was that even a word?  I don’t know how many times I’ve almost been run down by someone texting.  A noun becomes a verb.  I know there are horrible things going on in the world around us.  I know that there is ugliness everywhere you look.  But I also know that there is incredible beauty and incredible heroism all around us. I think too many people are missing something.

The saying used to be: “stop and smell the roses”.  Now I think it should be: “lift your head and  notice the world”.   Have we become so jaded so not in tune with the world that we are incapable of seeing the beauty that is all around us?  The other day I noticed an elderly couple holding hands and smiling at each other.  I thought how lucky they are!  They can see each other.  I watch children laughing and playing with a ball and I wonder how long their innocence will last.  All too soon they’ll be introduced to the evils of texting.  And soon they too will become isolated.  How long will it take before we become a world of individuals with no personal interaction with each other?

We need to stop.  We need to look around and notice each other.  We are not a species that does well without others of our kind.  We need to notice the beauty of a flower or a finely constructed poem.  We also need to notice each other.  We are in this journey together and those who journey with us contribute to who we will become.  Because we are not done becoming who we will be.  Hopefully the journey will be overflowing with wonders and excitement and that we will actually notice.