Pentecost
The three faiths which trace their origins to Father
Abraham - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - share a
linear sense of time in contrast to the cosmic religions
of ancient Egypt, the Hinduism of south Asia, and
Buddhism which experience time as circular. For
Christians there is always a past, a present and a
future. The present is when the future, sought yet always
elusive, interfaces with our past in our present.
Our response, if we make one, is in the present
and we either embrace the potential of the future or
reject it in the now. The present, the moment even, are
thus of eternal worth because it's always in the present
moment that we are working through our eternal destiny,
what we Christians call our salvation.
The spiritual writers Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat
have gathered marvelous thoughts and quotations in their
current book, SPIRITUAL LITERACY: READING THE SACRED IN
EVERYDAY LIFE. Some of these thoughts celebrate the
present and remind us how unhealthy, unwise and
non-spiritual is the choice of living mainly in the past
or mainly in the future and ignoring the present which in
actuality is all we really have.
Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon warns, "We spend
a long time wishing we were elsewhere and otherwise." We
are like the character in the book and movie, POSTCARDS
FROM THE EDGE, who sends a card home from vacation,
"Having a wonderful time. Wish I were here." Buddhist
teacher Jack Kornfield comments, "The quality of presence
determines the quality of life."
The l9th Century American writer, Henry David Thoreau,
who never travelled more than a few hundred yards from
his beloved Walden pond and yet opened up vast universes
of reflection, said: "Now or never! You must live in the
present, launch yourself on every wave, find eternity in
the moment."
Leave the past to God's mercy. Leave the future to
God's discretion. Treasure this moment for it is what you
have and can manage.
The Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nachman of Breslov advises,
"Each day has its own set of thoughts, words and deeds.
Live in tune." The Sufi mystic Jelluddin Rumi says, "Stay
here, quivering with each moment, like a drop of
mercury." And Jesus of Nazareth says: "Do not worry about
tomorrow but take care of (i.e. live) today."
Essential to experiencing the power of Holy Communion
or the Mass is that the banquet of God is spread out
before us, and it is the wish of the Divine Host that we
partake of the present moment without regret for the past
or fears of the future.
We devote too much of our energy trying to avoid being
present to the life now. Better to follow the example of
Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite
mystic. She told the other nuns of her convent that in
case she began to levitate or rise into the air during
Mass, they must grab hold of her so she wouldn't fly off
from the present. No flying nun for St. Teresa!
Pledge yourself to the moment and let it teach you.
Surrender yourself to the moment and let it preach you.
And in the case you're hungering for that Divine Host and
the Living Word get yourself in the moment of a Sunday
very soon to some place of worship because in worship all
our moments come together in a meaningful time in which
the present and the eternal blend.
Pastor Gene
Preston
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