STAYING IN THE MOMENT....

Summer time often makes us think of travel, vacations, and time off, being someplace else other than where we normally are. The problem is that we are often someplace other than where we are. One of, if not the, most difficult spiritual disciplines is to be where we are, to be here now, to be reading these words and not wandering off someplace else physically or mentally.
It is so often so difficult to just be in the present moment. Stuck in traffic? No one likes this, we would rather be someplace else, we get tense – worried about getting to our destination on time, and we fuss and fume. Waiting is not something we find easy to do: traffic, airports, checkout lines, paint to dry, flowers to bud, healing from an injury, living, dying; in all these and so many other ways we find something displeasing us in the present moment. We want to be somewhere else. We find some person, place or thing not to our liking.
In AA we say, “Acceptance is the key to happiness.” I would add that it is also the key to freedom and a deeper spiritual life. Accepting life as it is does not mean that we have to like it as it is, or that we shouldn’t work to change what is unacceptable. It doesn’t mean that we just resign ourselves to the present moment. What acceptance does is free us from the battle, the inner war that goes on within us, the inner war that is usually causing us more pain that whatever it is we are fighting. Acceptance calms us down, and then a host of new possibilities begin to emerge. Acceptance opens us up to the possibility of seeing God’s action in the most unpleasant of experiences.
A few weeks ago I drove down to LA to be on vacation with my dad. As many of you know, he’s been having shortness of breath, mostly from a valve that isn’t working quite right. I arrived on a Friday and the following Monday morning when we got up, he said he was having severe chest pains. [It turned out not to be a heart attack] At any rate, in rapid fire, I had these thoughts; “why is this happening? Don’t you know I’m on vacation? Looks like I am going to be doing a funeral.” Tentatively I asked, “Do you want me to call 911?” “No” came the reply. We stared at each other for what seemed minutes, I was sorting stuff out in my head and finally said, “Why do I drive you over to St. John’s emergency.” “That’d be a good idea” came the answer. In those few moments I had come to accept what was right in front of me. From that moment on, a host of possibilities opened up for us over the course of the next forty-eight hours. The details of what happened are interesting, even amazing, but far too long to state here. The end result is that my dad is back home, going up and down stairs and doing, albeit a tad slower, all the things he enjoys doing.
There was prayer in all of this too. I didn’t pray that God change the situation but rather that I have the patience, insight, assistance I needed to do the next right thing. When we pray for wisdom, unexpected and wonderful things begin to present themselves to us. A prayer of acceptance opens us up to the Presence of God in each and every moment.
For more on this subject I would recommend Fr. Richard Rohr’s, OFM book The Naked Now that outlines the need for and ways to develop the discipline of staying in the moment and celebrating The Presence.