In her poem "Aurora Leigh," Elizabeth Bar­rett Browning wrote:

          Earth's crammed with heaven,
          And every common bush afire with God;
          But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
          The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

I have certainly plucked my share of black­berries, blind to what wonder there is in life. But on occasion I have also had my eyes opened by others, a bit more sensitive and aware. I cherish those mo­ments and recall them when life gets too routine and ordinary. I'll never forget one such moment.

I stumbled out the door of a mountain cabin where I was spending the weekend working with youth and their families at a rustic retreat center. I had a 6:30 a.m. appointment to keep and squinted from the early autumn sun peeking over pine-blan­keted mountaintops.

"Today is a miracle!" spoke a young, enthusiastic voice behind me. I turned toward the radiant face of my teen-aged friend.

"How?" I asked her. I wasn't sure if I could handle any excitement this early in the morning.

"Think about it," she smiled. "The sun rose, didn't it?"

"Yeah." I found it easy to hide any enthusiasm. It seemed to rise on every other morning without any help from me.

"That's a miracle! It is miraculous that the earth turns as it does. At night, the sun goes down and in the morning it rises. It just happens!"

I pretty much had this figured out years ago, I thought, as I rubbed sleep from my eyes. I was also busy thinking about how to get a cup of coffee.

"And look at the mountains! Covered with trees and grass, they look so beautiful. And there," she pointed, "a valley. It's all a miracle!"

"What have I stumbled into?" I thought. "And where is the coffee?"

"Wildflowers blooming," she continued. "It all smells so fresh and clean and so good." She took a deep breath. Her blue eyes sparkled. "All of na­ture receives water and light. Things grow and blos­som -- it is all so beautiful."

Maybe it wasn't coffee I needed...but whatever she had gotten into! I didn't know if it was her bubbly personality or the freshness of the morning, but I began to sense her enchantment with the daybreak. A little, anyway. Somehow, she had me believing that the day did hold a certain magic.