Being
Present
“The
new paradigm suggests that while waiting for something to happen, we
are unbalanced, constantly 'leaning into the future.' Whenever we
dwell on the future, we miss what is happening right now. As Rabbi
Zera indicated, whenever we conjecture about the coming of the
messiah, we are drawn away from the essential element required for
messianic consciousness, which is to be fully present in the here and
now.”
Rabbi
David A. Cooper (God is a Verb)
It
is profoundly human, don't you think, to lean into the future. We are
constantly planning what comes next—what am I doing next week, next
month. I heard commentators on the news last night speculating about
what travel will be this Christmas, four months away, if gas prices
keep falling. And I've heard from commentators that ISIS is
trying to provoke Armageddon so as to bring about the second coming.
In the meantime, the evolution of Christ consciousness is difficult
to detect.
I
do see it in the faces of people trying to help each other. Watching
the Greek islanders pulling Syrian refugees from swamped life
rafts, little babies held high above their heads, comes to mind. They aren't
thinking of the future difficulties of housing and feeding them,
they're simply trying to save as many as they can. Seeing our
incredible fire fighters working sixteen hour days on the front lines
of miles and miles of furious wildfires, trying to save the homes and
lives of total strangers is another. They have to be immediate; loss
of focus in the here and now could be the last thought they ever think.
We always have our cart before the horse, so to speak. We are so busy
preparing for the future that we lose sight of what's right before
our faces. We lose these precious moments. I am more aware of the
phenomenon everyday. My sons, now in their thirties, tell me about
things that happened when they were growing up that I have absolutely
no memory of—I was too busy “leaning into the future.” I missed
about half their childhoods because I simply wasn't mentally present.
I hope you won't let that happen to you. Perhaps understanding our
essential role in bringing about Christ consciousness will motivate
us. In the famous words of Ram Das, “Be Here Now!”
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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