Leap Year!

I wanted to take advantage of this once-every-four-years opportunity to write something on February 29th. My initial plan involved doing all my Special Education paperwork today, which would rather nicely extend our annual revisions and three-year evaluation time lines. No one else thought it would work. A dismaying lack of faith in bureaucracy, I thought.

So I cast about for some other poor subject, but really, I'm just excited about leap year. I think it's great that we have a whole calendar day that only happens once every four years. I mean, that's fantastic. February 29th. Now you see it. Now you don't. Again, I had a bit of trouble rallying the troops, but I'm convinced it's worth celebrating. Maybe because I'm such a strong endorser of anything that makes us step back with any day and say, "Wow. This day is completely unique. What a rare gift. What a once in a lifetime opportunity."

We spend so much of our energy being stressed and harried, but here, today, is the urgency I love, that which has its roots in gratitude and reverence. That this day comes once. This moment comes once. If life is hard, that moment is an invitation to hope and perseverance, and a promise that no matter where we are, time never leaves us there. If life is glorious, it is something bittersweet--another promise, another call to look forward, a chance for just a moment to breathe in light.

No doubt my evening reinforced all the above--friendship, gourmet mac'n'cheese, good wine, a fire, and "Dead Man Walking"--a death penalty movie, but still part of the theme. Life is all bound up in life, and time makes beggars of us all, but somehow the uniqueness of each day seems more closely related to eternity than anything, and God is life and our life is hid in him and eternity is hid in our hearts. A beautiful jumble.

Happy Leap Year.
Happy February 29th, 2008.
Happy March 1, 2008.
Happy Life.