Living in the Moment

This week's quote is by Friedrich Schiller, "Nicht in die ferne Zeit verliere dich! Den Augenblick ergreife, der ist dein." Which being translated, means, "Do not lose yourself in the distant time! Take the moment, that's yours."

Over the past few years, I have come to believe that God’s presence is everywhere, in our ordinary, everyday lives, if we had but eyes to see, and ears to hear. I believe that through sacred living - weaving moments of attention into our everyday lives, and recognising the sacred there, we will find that which gives our lives purpose and meaning. Sacred living is about living with a new level of awareness. It is about going through each normal day paying attention to what is happening in each passing moment. It is about noticing the presence of the divine, the numinous, everywhere, in the natural world, in other people, in ourselves, and in things that happen to us. Then, as Mary Jean Irion wrote, “Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savour you, before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

Because today is all we have. Today is the only place in which time touches eternity. I love the Sanskrit affirmation: “Look to this day - For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence: the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendour of beauty. For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day.”

Yet how often do we spend our days (or one day or even part of a day) totally present? Appreciating every moment, every interaction, every person or object or things our senses come into contact with? I know I don’t!

So how do we spend our days? Many of us, especially as we grow older, spend them living in the past, looking back with either pleasure or regret (or a mixture of both). And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being nostalgic about our past lives, so long as the past is a place we visit, rather than the place we live. As the Sanskrit wise one said: “yesterday is but a dream.” It is no longer real.

Others of us spend our days in the future, always heading towards the next goal, the next hill to climb. Our diaries are full for weeks to come, and there always seems to be a long to-do list on the go. I write a new one, every Monday morning, to make sure that all the things I need to get done in the forthcoming week, somehow get done. And yes, forward planning is important, as we try to juggle home life, work life, looking after children, looking after parents, some sort of social life. If we didn’t plan, everything would fall down crash.

There is a beautiful prayer, quoted by Rachel Naomi Remen, in her book, My Grandfather's Blessings, which sums all this up, much more beautifully than I can:

“Days pass, and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles.

Lord, fill our eyes with seeing, and our minds with knowing.

Let there be moments when your Presence,

like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.

Help us to see, wherever we gaze,

that the bush burns, unconsumed.

And we, clay touched by God,

will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder:

‘How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it.’”

Amen