Earlier this month, I sat in the Box Elder High School gym and watched Jason Stocks stride across the stand to get his diploma.
And I heard the senior class cheer and call his name - not because he was a grand athlete or student leader but because he was Jason.Jason has Down syndrome. He also has sight and hearing problems. But he is the state's Outstanding Advocate for Special Needs.
And as I watched him cross the stage, I thought of the day the two of us were teamed up to go scavenger hunting for dance decorations.
We were quite a pair.
Me - overeducated and overly cautious, always taking mental notes and keeping the world at a distance.
And Jason, embracing the world with both arms. When he went to the prom, performed charity or hung with his friends, he lived the moment.
I didn't envy his struggles in life. I didn't envy his confusions and fears.
But I did envy the freshness he brought to everything and everyone around him.
That was the difference between us.
I realize some will say Jason didn't choose his lot, that I'm romanticizing his disability. But I know Jason and know his family. I feel he'd be much the same, disability or no.
He marveled at the world.
I measured and embellished it.
I was like the writer who showed Nobel novelist I.B. Singer his short story about a talking, disembodied head.
"What?" the old master had asked. "You mean talking heads attached to bodies aren't miraculous enough for you?"
For Jason, any talking head was more than enough. He trusted in Providence and was grateful for small favors. Some cultures would say he'd been touched by the di-vine.
Such sweetness, in fact, reminded me of another friend, Father Charles Cummings of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville.
Taking a walk with Father Charles is like taking a ride with Jason. There is no guile in him. He's as transparent as glass. Every emotion and motive shows in his eyes.
Father Charles lives in the present the way fish live in water. And he's constantly surprised by God's little wonders.
He even wrote a book about it: "The Mystery of the Ordinary" (Harper; 1982). There he writes:
To discover the mystery of the ordinary, it is not enough merely to go through the motions of rising, walking, eating, resting . . . what is helpful is to be gently, attentively present to the full reality of our human experience here and now. . . ."
For Father Charles, being aware of ordinary things is a form of prayer. Like Jason he is always "here and now." He never retreats from the moment.
The day Jason got his diploma, he lived the moment.
I sat back and analyzed it.
The day we went looking for decorations, Jason jumped into the moment and swam.
I watched him from the shore.
We took my father's ancient pickup truck that day, a truck older than Noah - a motoring mir-acle. And as we drove along, I watched Jason examine the thread-bare seats, run his fingers over the cracked plastic of the dash and flick at the rust spots.
Then he glanced at me.
"You need to take better care of your things," he said sheepishly.
I nodded.
Yes, Jason, I do.
Over the years I've let a lot in my life get away from me.
I haven't been very attentive to the things around me.
But I'm learning to appreciate them.
Thanks to people like you.