NBC has added a new show to its mid season lineup. The title? “Awake!”  It caught my attention and I find it quite intriguing.  The plot line has a protagonist living through two realities – one where he is dreaming and one where he is awake.  Only, neither we, as the viewer, nor he as the main character, know which is the reality and which is the dream.

It got me thinking about how we are going through our reality.  Are we awake?  Or, are we merely sleep-walking through our days so we can get past this present time to another day and leave behind the stress and unpleasantness of this time and this place?  I believe it is an important spiritual question.  How much of our day do we notice and savor and reflect on?  And, how much of our day do we just rush past, as if asleep, to get to the next thing?

Let’s make this day a day of total wakefulness.  Let’s listen to what is being said.  Acknowledge the impact people have on us.  Reach out when the opportunity arises.  Savor the blue of the sky or the emerging flowers of spring.  Smell the flavors of life all around us.  Feel the dampness and the rain on our face and wake up to the wonder of each day.  God communicates with us through the ordinary events of our days, but we have to be awake in order to realize that.  This is not a dream.  It is the universe unfolding in our midst.

It would be a shame and a waste of Lent to sleep-walk through these days.  Each moment is graced.