The Joe Moment

In the vastly underrated movie "Joe vs. the Volcano," Tom Hanks is on a raft--made of luggage--in the middle of the ocean. Meg Ryan is unconscious, and Tom is starting to hallucinate.

And then the full moon comes up, huge in a way that you really want to believe is possible.

Tom staggers to his knees and says, "Dear God, whose name I do not know. Thank you for my life. I forgot---How Big!"

Maybe, if we're really lucky, we get one or two of those moments a year. It's enough, though. It's like a battery charger for the soul--riding on the roof of a bus as it heads into the foothills of the Himalayas, watching a bear swim across the Stikine River in Alaska, or just taking a walk with someone, and they say the one exact thing that is what you most need to hear at that moment. It's when you watch the person you love open their eyes, it's standing in a place you never thought you'd be, and knowing that it's all much, much bigger than you ever dreamed possible.

Yeah, the moment is going to fade away, like a glimpse of satori. George Harrison wasn't kidding when he said "all things must pass."

But it's still the only reason a person needs to go out again.