To be a Christian is to be continually searching for Christ, continually looking for the kingdom. Jesus said that the kingdom is in our midst. The problem, of course, is that most of us fail to see it.

In Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town", little Emily is able to return from the dead for one day. She chooses her thirteenth birthday, a day that she has long since forgotten. She sees her mother and approaches her with such deep emotion. Her mother, of course, is simply going about what she was going about on Emily's thirteenth birthday. She gives Emily a little kiss, wishes her happy birthday and then goes back to puttering at the stove, preparing breakfast.

It breaks Emily's heart.

"Mother, please look at me for one minute as though you really saw me!"

The kingdom is all around us. We just don't really see it.

I was talking with a friend about this lack of mindfulness from which so many of us suffer. She recalled a time last winter when she was walking with her little grandson and they stopped by a bridge to watch the water from a small creek flow through the ice and snow. They crouched for a while paying particular attention to an icicle slowly letting go of drop after drop of clear, pristine water. Finally, the little boy spoke.

"Nana," he said, "why are you so good to me?"

I suspect that he was sensing the holiness of the moment, the imminence of the kingdom. I have a hunch that he realized just how rarely we adults stop to watch water flow or icicles drip.

"Unless you become as a little child," Jesus said, "you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."