Ministry of Presence!
I have been examining the roles of a few things in my life lately. In so doing I am beginning to realize something, I am way to addicted to the future. So much so that I often find myself neglecting the present. Other times I am so tied up in the past I can not even see myself in the present. Now, I am not going to do something drastic like join a commune or plan on living a day to day existence as a mountain man or anything, but I wonder why it is that I do that?
Man is one strange creature in the world. By this I mean that we are the only ones given the incredible gift of a long memory and a forward looking life. We can use our past to predict what is likely going to happen in the future and begin to shape our life narrative around the good and the bad of that outcome.
One of the ways that we continually stay discontent in our life though is that we are always imagining life differently or better. We believe if we “just went to that school” or “took that Job opportunity” we would not be in the mess we are in. I am a master at this, and I believe there are a few others out there that are as well. What we need to begin to cultivate is a sense of the present. Being present in the now, in the reality of our situation good or bad.
I once tried to figure out what made some of my favorite people in the world.. well, my favorites. I think I have come to the realization that they are pretty good at living in the moment. They do not let the past (and some of them have had horrible pasts) determine what they are doing now and they don’t get to bound up by the future and what it holds. They have a simple trust in the goodness of God and the universe and the people around them. Some of these people have been characterized as lazy, stupid or arbitrarily marked as a slacker and put on Ritalin so they can “focus”. I think these people have an inherent wisdom in them that we would do well to master.
Now, I am not saying do not plan for tomorrow. We need things like I.R.A’s, life goals and the like. But they need to be put in proper perspective. In the perspective of Eternity. Lets think about this.
If I live to be 80 years old and I spend the last 2o of it living off the hard earned gains of my first 60 years I would in a worldly term be “successful”. But in an eternal term what does that look like? A Cosmic eye blink that is so fast and insignificant that the universe will barely acknowledge my existence before you are 6 feet under fertilizing the next farmers field for the future. I know, it is grim and maybe seemingly nihilistic, but it is the truth.
When we begin to take the problems, ideas and situations of our lives captive to eternity we should begin to realize how silly it seems to loose so much sleep over what we are doing in this life. We need to be responsible for this life, but relax a little and enjoy what you are given. What you are given is the here and now. We never know that tomorrow is assured. We are not even assured that our past is an accurate predictor of our present. We see our past through the lens of our life and our life only. No one else inhabits my skin, no one else inhabits yours.
My wife and I are never as far apart from each other as when one of us is so focused on the past or the future in a situation we are looking past each other. Raising my son I am never so unfocused as when he is trying to tell me something and I am “multitasking” or doing some other highly irrelevant situation. When I find myself in these situations I often try and do a few things:
1) Get away from the T.V., if even for just a few hours. Television and the advertisers that fund it have one thing in mind, selling a product. They do that by constantly bombarding you with the idea that you are incomplete without the item they are selling or the service they provide. Shut the idiot up, let it rest. The whole purpose of telivison is to keep you discontent and looking to how to hav/make a better future. And of course that will cost you $99.95 plus S&H.
2) Turn off Facebook, Myspace, Twitter…whatever is floating your boat. They suck your time away so quick it is literally mind boggling. Those of you who are reading this and see me on Facebook all the time this is not hypocrisy, Facebook is there because I am constantly in front of a computer for work. I do not spend much time on it if I am not at work.
3) Meditate. Yup, I said it, meditate. Get your focus on something else. Charismatic Christians meditiate often, it is called praying in tongues. It turns off the higher functions of the brain and just causes you to relax and recieve. Others actually meditate, as in Yoga. I leave that in your boat, I am not touching that for a popsicle. You decide if that is good or bad.
When you take the time to do some of these things, and this list is definitely not all inclusive, you begin to relax and just inhabit the moment. When you are doing that your disposition towards others is more relaxed, more open, and more enjoyable. Those around you will see quickly that you are engaged in the moment, and by default you are engaged in them. I believe this is an excellent parenting tool and I plan to work hard at it. It is also good for friendships and coffee shop discussions.
When we see our lives as narrative and begin to realize all we really have is this moment we inhabit it is a freeing feeling. In the movie Kung Fu Panda there is a line that is quite wise and I think we should all adopt this understanding.
“Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
and today is a gift.
That is why it is called the Present”
~Selah~
