The most important thing (or why I haven’t written)

I didn’t write because we spent the evening in the desert, the eclectic group that we were, staring at the stars that I’m sure aren’t quite as big in Georgia.  

I didn’t write because she sat down beside me, with a voice that asked quiet questions but a heart that screamed for companionship. As I half listened and half packed, I winced when she uttered words of heartbreaking dejection: “You have no idea how lonely I’ve been.”

I didn’t write because the Arab family that hosted me sat around the table until well after midnight, laughing and carrying on. Though I knew not the language, no one has ever conveyed the meaning of family so well.

I didn’t write because we spent the day at the beach, playing cards and getting stung by jellyfish. And it was a great day.

I didn’t write because he asked me to go for a walk, and we explored the old steps of Nazareth, the call to prayer filling our ears and the sight of the city below beckoning our minds to distant times.

I didn’t write because I have only this one life, and I’m slowly learning the importance of living it exactly where I’m at. Tomorrow I will most likely spend it in a different place with different people. I will eat different food and have different sights before me. (Perhaps I will even spend the day with you.) But for now I am here, and there isn’t a more important place I could wish to be. For now I am with these people, and there are no more important people that I could desire to be with. And when life affords the opportunity to pull out my computer and type away while others are sleeping around me, I promise you, I absolutely will. But during the other times, which are far more common, I will ask God to help me immerse myself fully in this moment, with these people, in this place.

Why?

Because the most important place is the place you are right now.
The most important person is the one whose eyes are staring into yours at this moment.
And the most important thing is the thing at hand.