Be Here Now. From “Behold Your Life” by Macrina Wiederkehr
How difficult it is to bring our real presence to every moment. How easy it is to take life for granted. We need reminders along the way; gentle nudgings and awakenings, sunsets and breath-taking panoramas, good literature and love songs, beauty and pain, death and birth. Yes, let us reach out for those gifts that will not allow us to sleepwalk through life.
We miss the enrichment of life by not living in the moment. There are times, however, when God speaks to us so dramatically from the burning bush of the present moment that we cannot remain asleep. We are compelled into the mystery of “now”. It is almost as though the moment finds us.
Whether we are living or dying, what counts is being there. Those who are dying often teach us about living in the present moment. In sickness or in health, the challenge is to be awakened to the blessings at our side. If we’ve set up permanent residence in the past or the future, the pain and joy of the present can’t bless us. Pain and joy are not always able to penetrate the armour of our indifference, our apathy, our inattentiveness, our distracted way of living. Though, at times, pain does a better job than joy. It is very difficult to sleep through pain. We are usually awakened. We may choose to pull on our armour again as we try to anaesthetise ourselves from the pain, but the reality is we have been awakened.
The question is “Will we choose, now, to remain awake? We need to practice living in the present moment.
Yes, life is a whole string of nows knit together with friendship and songs, heartaches and tears, fears and courage passion and compassion, depression and elation, patience and impatience, and more… So don’t miss life. Take up your life and walk, whether it’s happy or sad, angry or disappointing, ecstatic, hopeful, heart wrenching or tender. You name it! Just don't miss it.It is your gift to unwrap as you move through the hours. It is God offering hospitality to you as you move into tomorrow.