Here and Now

I would like to pass along a precious fragment of wisdom from the beautiful Ann Voskamp's mellifluous pen for each of us to consider as we wrap up one year and embark upon the next.

"I’m wiping off the table. It strikes me: I am not here. My mind’s lunging ahead, already dashing onto the next and the next and the next, tripping over this and that and falling all over the future that isn’t.

I profane this moment when I won’t stay in it.

I desecrate now when I dismiss it in my push for the next. There are snowflakes sticking to the glass of the window.Right there at the table’s edge I can see them clustering together, piling, melding on the pane. I almost missed it.

I miss living this moment because my head’s already moved into the next moment — the one that isn’t even here yet — and when I am not in this moment but trying to shove into a moment that doesn’t even exist — I miss out on living at all. I may bodily be in this space but I am not even alive.

Could I be walking through the years but not even be alive?

There’s a dishcloth in my hand. The skin of my hand is the border of me in time, my skin the way of keeping me within the frame of now. Is this why God puts us who are souls into bodies? To keep us in this moment?"

(Read the rest at Ann's blog.)

May we all welcome this new year with a heart to live it to its fullest and not cheat ourselves out of a single moment by unnecessary worry or the persistent efforts of a busy mind to grasp ahead at things not yet given us to do. Happy New Year!