Mary Bilderback

Rereading Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" recently, I realized that many seeds for the consciousness we're struggling to act out of today may have been germinating back when it debuted in 1938.

What if our uniquely human virtuosity lies in looking, learning, seeking to conspire with this gratuitous flow of beauty and goodness — praising as we go?

What, after all, is it that we're looking for — if not the face of God? Someone who looks back, and does not turn away. Someone who is searching for us with Easter eyes.

A morning glory opens in a vacant lot. A fish bumps the surface of a lake. (Amen.) Falling on our knees we say all there is to say about how we are to be here. Our mere astonishment has ripples.

Exactly what we need to hear: News about being — yours and mine. Who are you? Who do you say I am? What's life like for us on this planet?

"When death comes for me," he said, "I'm curious to meet her. I'm the last of my family and friends. I'm no longer afraid of dying alone. Within me," he looked down at his feet, "there is no alone. Same within within you." That was as clear a homily as I ever heard from my fisherman friend.

Now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it's hand-washing that is the very big deal. We wash our own hands. Over and over. We wash them for each other: ritual — the Resilience of Reciprocity.

I don't think we were meant to treat each other mindlessly — rats included. And on and on, up and down the great chain of beings. Oceans included. And all our wild, wet kin.

Everywhere, lying just beneath the surface of what can easily be reported and sensibly explained, some curious presence is reaching out to us — barefoot — as we reach out to it.