We had dinner
with some new friends the other night. Much of our discussion revolved around
the privilege we experience in our lives:
that even when we momentarily perceive our lives as “less than” (the
past, others’, what we’d prefer…), we can quickly wake up to the enormous grace
and beauty of Life.
Driving home, we
passed a billboard with lively, happy imagery that read “Live for Now.” Live
for now? I immediately contrasted this with what I often write about on this
blog, in my journals, in my essays:
being present Now. “Living for now” and “being present now” seem totally
different to me.
Living for now implies judgment, pleasure, consumption,
momentariness, and clinging. If we are, as the signboard encouraged, supposed
to buy particular products because they will make us feel good right now, the
assumption is that “right now” isn’t really good enough as it is. We must change
it, strive for something different, consume specifically, alter, contrive, do
something.
Being present now means something totally contrary to that
advertised message. For me, being present in this moment implies be-ing rather
than do-ing. It is about acceptance of what actually is. Presence now directs
us to drop strife, consumption, alteration, and judgment about what should be.
If I am present right now, I might just have to face actualities that are,
perhaps, less than pleasant. Being present now
asks us to simply show up to the way things really are. Being present in this
moment acknowledges the ever-changing nature of Nature (which is the source of
all Life). And being present now is not just about feeling good, pleasure,
happiness, bounty, blessing, light. But when these “good feelin’ things” do
arise for us, they are enhanced and pure because as a substrate there is peace.
Yes, being
present in the very moment does necessarily offer peacefulness, even if the
circumstances of the moment are not precisely as we’d choose.
Being present now allows us to take those moments of fear
and ingratitude, during which we forget that we are actually totally okay, and
reweave them back into the whole fabric of our lives, lives that are rich with
interconnection, beauty, Spirit. Why do we always ask so much of life, as if we
need to revise it (by buying a product on a billboard?) in order to not feel
shortchanged. Is not this one breath right now plenty? We don’t get to decide
how long we will live; but we do get to choose how we live, how we respond to our lives.
These are the real gifts for which we can spin our Lives into a beautiful web that is the privilege of being alive.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
