Rambling through the verdant Irish countryside on a rare sunny day was a tour bus full of people. The bus passed idyllic scenes of crystal blue lakes, bright green forests, and rolling hillsides sporting centuries-old, lichen-covered stone fences.

But inside the bus the tourists were trying to solve a problem. The bus had a flat tire earlier that day, putting the tour off-schedule, resulting in a tense, lingering discussion over which of the remaining 27 sights should be skipped.

The discussion was so consuming that no one had bothered to open the curtains on the inside of the bus, meaning no one saw the countryside, one of the grandest sites of the entire tour, because they'd been distracted by something far less important.

This week, Christians commemorate a feast called Epiphany. This word means 'revealing' and carries an air of awareness and waking up.

And we mark this day because we all have episodes when we forget to open up the curtains on the bus. We get caught up in the detours and distractions of sports, politics, home improvement, investments, vacation planning, you name it, and before we know it we've lost sight of the fact that the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing.

This is not to infuse us with guilt and regret, but to note that this is what it means to be human - yes, we all walk into rooms and say, 'Why did I come in here again?'

The symbol of Epiphany is light, meaning hope, meaning we can find ways to wake up, pull the curtains, and bask in the awareness that God loves us, God is with us, and that everything is going to be okay.

How will we do that today?