In the moment ....

It was raining outside my window as I wrote this. It was dull. It was damp. It was downright depressing out there. It spoiled my plans for a tea party in the garden. But wait a minute…the grasses, the trees, the plants were all soaking it up. It meant I wouldn't have to water the garden, refill the bird bath or wipe the dust off the lawn furniture. “The sun’ll come out tomorrow”, as the song from Annie says, and then everything will flourish and grow.

Somehow it is harder to visualize the ‘sun’ coming out tomorrow when the ‘rain’ is coming into my life, when I wake up in the morning and despite the sun shining outside everything looks gloomy... or depressing… or boring… or hopeless…or ?????. Full of questions and doubts, I have to answer the questions "What is important to me? What makes me feel alive? What matters to me now? Am I going down the wrong road? Who decides it is the wrong road anyway?" So many, many questions ... so few 'real' answers. So I tell myself, "I have no answers, but only my own experience of what feels right, what brings a sense of peace, a sense of completeness, to me."

I will trust in that, because what else really matters in life - but how we live each day in relationship with each other. Living in the present, dealing with the challenges of the moment in such a way that celebrates who I really am and who the other is ... recognizing our ‘connectiveness’, the 'God' in us both. In order to do this though, I need to get 'my' wants, 'my' needs, 'my' priorities out of the way, so that the other can take precedence. And that is what it is really important!

To paraphrase Therese of Lisieux , “discouragement happens when we think too much about the past and the future”.

So the challenge for me this week is to live as much as possible in the present . . . for it is only in the present that we can experience the Divine. Only when we shut out the worries of the past and the concerns of the future, can we truly be present to this moment with all of its fullness or boredom. And it is only in the moment that we can experience happiness.

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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