My friends Maggie and Paul have a small brown wooden plaque hanging on the wall in the hallway of their apartment. I've walked by that plaque many a time but only recently took the time to read its message.

In small lettering that took a steady hand, the message reads: "There is nothing more important than today."

The day I read that message was a bright, crisp Tuesday in early May. Maggie had the windows thrown wide open and the apartment was chilly. Change was decidedly in the air. Maggie and Paul and their two children are moving to England. The apartment was pulled all apart with boxes everywhere. Theirs was a household with one foot already out the door.

And so, standing there with that moment tied so much to the future, their move, what living abroad will bring, the message on the wall was saying that today, that moment right there was more important than all of the worrying or anticipating, planning or hoping.

This message to appreciate the present can be found in passages in the Bible. It gets restated in different form from generation to generation. Today we hear it in the call to "be present in the moment."

My Mom once said that the happiest moment in one's life does not come with warning or label. And so it seems it is left to each of us to decide if we show up each day to the life that unfolds before us.

Notes from my life: Monday, June 1, 2009.

The fun thing about my grandchildren is that they seem to have granted me a second license on wonder.

On this stormy Monday, Phoebe Rose Kimball entered the world about 2:30 in the afternoon. I was in a line of slow moving traffic at that moment headed for the hospital. Phoebe was welcomed into the world surrounded by folks who had managed their schedules much better than me: mother Liz, dad Jake, two-year-old sister Julia and grandmother Debbie.

When I finally arrived at the designated hospital room, Phoebe was off having a bath and Julia was ready for a distraction. The two of us went off for a walk. Down immaculate hospital corridors light with warm but dim illumination, we stopped to look at balloons and bulletin boards with baby pictures and animal cut outs. Julia, long past her nap time, needed holding and then freedom and then chasing.

Around the corner we ran to a darkened alcove with a window at waist high level, beyond the window, the nursery bathed in white and light

"Julia," I said, "let's look at the babies."

I scooped Julia in my arms and raised her to get a good view. And in that incredible moment as wonder fused with awe, there she was - the only little customer in the place.

Phoebe, all pink and pretty laid on her back snoozing by herself under a warming lamp. Naked, except for the tiniest of diapers, she was perfectly still but for her little belly moving up and down. Phoebe was the exact twohour old version of the twoyear old pointing at her through the window.

For a moment, Julia and I just looked, watched and breathed along with Phoebe.

Even awe and wonder have a time limit. Julia and I were soon off running down other corridors and counting butterflies on other bulletin boards. Formal introductions with Phoebe, in person, would have to wait.

Life interrupts itself. Wonder persists. Welcome little one.