One of my favorite books is “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury. It is the story of a summer in the lives of Douglas Spaulding and John Huff, and relates all the adventures that two 12-year-old boys can create in a small Illinois town during the 1930’s. And now that school was out they were planning to spend the entire day together. When they met, Douglas sensed that something was bothering his friend. Even though John told him that the Huff family would be moving to another town, Douglas still felt that John had not revealed everything. After further questioning, John’s real problem was told.

John asked Douglas whether he had ever noticed the big white house at the end of the block. When Douglas said he knew it well, John started talking about the window on the house’s third floor. It seemed that John had only noticed for the first time that the third-floor window was a beautiful multi-colored window which glowed exquisitely in the morning sun. John said to Douglas, “I saw that window for the first time today; and now that I am leaving town, I wonder how many other beautiful things I have missed in my life!”

That fictional boy’s story encourages us to ask ourselves how many beautiful things and people we have missed seeing in our life because we’ve been too busy, too addicted to screens. The late spiritual writer Father William McNamara in his book, “The Human Adventure,” wrote: “Most of our sins are due to thoughtlessness. We don’t have bad wills; we intend to be kind, but caught off guard, we lose our perspective and behave in a mean way. Therefore, most of us will have to stop doing half the things we do in order to do the other half with sincere faith and love.”

At this time of the year, beauty and new life are bursting forth wherever we chose to look. We have the opportunity to see God “create a new heaven and a new earth and the passing away of the former heaven and former earth” (Rev. 5:1) It is indeed the Resurrection season! Look up and see!

– Fr. Dennis Lynch