Unknowing

"We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives." Maya Angelou

We are dealing with some medical issues right now in our family. As is quite often the case with these issues, there is a degree of uncertainty: uncertainly about the diagnosis, the treatment, the effect it might have on daily life going forward. I find myself amazed at the number of people who want to know the answers to the above concerns immediately, and don’t seem willing or able to let them appear in their own time. I am sure that 10 years ago I would have been right there with them! There is no doubt that being able to live with uncertainty makes life more livable.

I was thinking about as well those people who seem able to live in the present moment with whatever clarity or uncertainty it brings. They don’t even seem to ask those What? When? Why? questions that the others do.

Learning to live with mystery, with no definite answers, or actually with no answers at all, seems to be part of the life journey we are all on. There is no doubt that being able to live with uncertainty makes life more livable. We are encouraged to live in the moment, by our faith, and so should find it easy to transfer that skill to our daily lives. But it doesn’t seem so.

Which makes me wonder just why that is…… Why is it that our faith seems so often to be a Sunday thing, while what goes on outside the doors of the church during the rest of the time has little if anything to do with it. I came across the quote ‘the god of the gaps’ again this past week and it seems to explain this phenomenon in part. We only have time for God when there is a time specifically put aside for religion. God is absent the rest of the time.

And so when times like this happen to us, as they will, the concept of living in the moment, of being present, is not necessarily our first or even our second response. Many of us want immediate answers about what the future might hold and we want them NOW. Just another example of times when our faith and our actual reactions don’t necessarily agree. To close with another quote by Maya Angelou, may we all learn to “be present in all things and be thankful for all things.”

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