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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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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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