a numinous moment

art by Alona Frankel

It was a bright, glorious May day, one that only those who lived through the bitter New York winter deserve. The sky that had been grey and dreary for 6 months was sparkling blue. The scent of purple lilacs danced across the green lawn. I was 5 years old and had just finished my lunch. Dashing out the back door,  I looked for my mother who was hanging sheets that were flapping in the breeze. She heard the little song I was singing and turned. I asked if I could go play with my friend up the street and she smiled with such great warmth and said: Yes, and have fun."I carried the glow of that smile with me all day.

This is not a scene one would put in a novel, just an ordinary moment in a day but I have held it close for all these years. Somewhere in my life I understood the significance of the remembering.  It was because most of the other interactions were not as graced as this one. Often, they were with a curt reply or shrill yelling. This was affirmed for me when my daughter was taking a course in child psychology at Georgia State. In passing, she said that children remember the unusual, the rare occurrence, not the ordinary. Yes, the fall in the lake when I was 4, I recall vividly the colors and the fright. And this unusual day with that smile.All these years I have painted that shiny day with a grey brush wondering why it had to be the unusual and not the usual.Why hadn't I seen that loving smile more?

They say that, to have a desire for God, one must have had a numinous moment, a moment of grace in their lives. Now, in this place in my life, I choose to believe this: I know my mother loved me, she had a hard life and she gave me this one moment and showed me the love of God. It was enough.