Magic

It's 10:30 a.m. on a Friday. I'm on vacation. I've been basically awake since 4 a.m. Reason? To witness the wedding of Prince William of Wales and his bride, Catherine Middleton. The dress was stunning, the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome as ever. The trumpets sounded. The music was spectacular. Even the sun came out - and if you've ever been to London you know that's a fairly rare occurance. Now, why did I and millions of others wake up before the sun to witness the wedding of a young couple whom we do not know and will probably never meet? Well, I can't speak for the millions, but I can speak for me.

Part of it is because I, along with the world, have watched William grow up. I rose early to watch his parents marry. I wept with him when his mother died. I watched him become a man and take on more and more responsibility as the man who will be King. I smile when he smiles because he looks so much like Diana and has so many of her traits and passions. Today, I admire the fact that with all of the nods to tradition and order and responsibility that they did this their way, down to leaving the palace driving themselves - in a decorated convertible with balloons waving off the back and a sign that read "Just Wed" over the license plate. It completely took the crowd and the media off guard. Kind of reminds me of a young princess that died to soon.

But here's the real reason. I still need to believe in magic. I don't think I'm alone in this. The world is a dark, scary place and if we allow ourselves to get bogged down in nothing but dark and scary we become cynical and mean.

Wednesday of this week was a simply awful day in the state of Alabama and across the South. Over 120 tornadoes touched down in the worst outbreak this country has seen in 30 years. In Tuscaloosa and Birmingham twisters the size of those we see in the Plains ripped a destructive path thru highly populated areas. Neighborhoods are gone. People are dead. It's dark and sad and just horrible. Across this country and around the world people are struggling to make ends meet. Gas prices are too high. Unemployment is rampant. Weather related destruction and death are seemingly more common, or at least more widely reported. Nothing's easy. It would be so simple to pull the shades down at the end of the day and crawl into bed believing in nothing and expecting nothing to ever change. But if that's what we allow ourselves to believe, honestly, why get up the next day at all?

When times are tough, it's not the time to stop believing in magic - it's the time to start looking for it. Whether it's the baptism of a baby, or the laughter of a 2 year old during his first real Easter egg hunt, or the helping hand of a stranger when you've lost everything. Maybe it's your family around the dinner table. Maybe it's a sunrise. Maybe it's an empty tomb. Maybe - just maybe - it's in the faces of two young people as they take vows to love, honor, and cherish  - and then turn and face forever with hope and excitement and a few nerves.

Some are already tearing them down. Some are only talking about how much it cost. Some are already making bets about how long it will last. How ugly. How sad. I can't walk thru life that way, and I don't know why anyone would want to.

So, I'm going to start my day. I'm going to get in my currently un-air conditioned car and pay entirely too much to fill it up and then I'm going to drive 2+ hours in that very hot car. But at the end of that journey, I'll be sitting on the front porch of my sister's house, probably with a cold drink in my hand, and that makes all of the other stuff worth it.

My wish, on this day when a young woman married her handsome Prince and became a Princess, is that we all stop focusing on the dark and start recognizing and rejoicing in the magic that surrounds us daily. It's the thing that gives us hope, and makes the dark not so scary.

No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true