A RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE can be a wedding, a christening, a Memorial Day service, a bar mitzvah, or anything like that you might be apt to think of. There are lots of things going on at them. There are lots of things you can learn from them if you're in a receptive state of mind. The word observance itself suggests what is perhaps the most important thing about them.
A man and a woman are getting married. A child is being given a name. A war is being remembered and many deaths. A youngster is coming of age.
It is life that is going on. It is always going on, and it is always precious. It is God that is going on. It is you who are there that is going on.
As Henry James advised writers, be one on whom nothing is lost. Observe!! There are few things as important, as religious, as that.
-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
