now let's just take a moment.........

Spiritual resource to share: stillness

I'd like to take a moment from the raging headlines today and write about moments and why it is hard to catch and keep them.

I'm remembering the time when my exchange student daughter and I visited her high school for the last time before she flew back home. "Wait," she said as she ran around the school taking pictures of her old classrooms, the hallways, her old locker. She took as many pictures as her camera would hold.

Like my son, who told me to wait as we drove off to the airport to see him off for Germany. And so I slowed down and made stops along the way as he took in a long look at our house, the well traveled roads that he walked, ran and biked, the cinema, the restaurant where he worked, as he wouldn't be seeing these again for a whole year.

I can relate. Tons of times I have wanted to capture a moment that I could take out and swim in again and again. But life is rich. It is full of moments and they just keep coming.

So what is in a moment and what makes it memorable? More than a place or a thing – a memorable moment tells us all of what is spiritually rich about our lives.

One of my favorite poets is Godfrey John who has this spiritual take on ‘moments’ in his poem:

“This Moment of Your Living”

You’re alive – not merely existing. You are: you’re not trying to be. Discover the life of the moment- this moment of your living.

NOT YOU
Not you – as an amalgam of happenings, you-as-you-were a decade, a moment, ago: to ask What was I? is to be blind to the fact of presence. Man is not a chronology. Not you as a mosaic of hopes and fears: to ask What will I be? Is to stop discovering. Not you content with a status quo: a cup of years spilling satisfaction over the hour. Not even you-as-you-becoming --

BUT YOU BEING
You spiritually. You in the action of being you where being is the emanation of I AM. “I AM hath sent me unto you”: Being, God, impels man, breathes through him Love’s incentives. Soul’s expression now, you go as His fragrance in every place.
This is your felt unity with Him. Moment by moment.
Soul plants pure desires along your days. The innocence of what you are flares through the guilt of what you are not. Like cyclamen in the winter sun: not withholding, not seeking to hold- but giving out help simply by being what it is- moment by moment.

YOU TIMELESSLY
Not you in the moment. But this moment of you-- brilliantly, immaculately. Knowing is being. Infinitely. Mind’s allness, Mind’s oneness never stops being known. As man-idea, woman-idea--one idea-- in God’s thought, you are instantly
understood, always being known; you have Soul’s mobility within this hourless
knowing: the dance fulfilling the dancer without end, as in beauty in the unspoken, as rhythm in what is till.

DISCONVERING
To ask Who am I? is to be irrelevant. To ask What am I? is to be blind to substance, to the isness of Spirit where you are.
Ask, How am I being?
Man is what he’s being-- Love’s pure idea-- birthlessly real.
Love’s meaning is your meaning at each moment of new awakening- at the precision –timing of Principle. Here you are learning to be what you are.
Beautifully. Brilliantly. Preciously. Agelessly. Mightily. Deathlessly. Yes, as a psalm spills over you. Yes, in this fond discovering of you. You are what you are because I AM that I AM. NOW.
Moment by moment by moment by moment

copyright 1978 Christian Science Publishing Society
from book Idea on Wings

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

River Lesson #5367

Spiritual resource to share: full engagement

I have learned so much from rivers. Rivers were a big part of my life for about ten years as a raft guide and whitewater kayaker and racer. Next to the the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, I probably learned more life lessons from this one natural resource than all others!

This lesson, lovingly called #5367, was about putting down the pride of accomplishment and fully engaging in the present state of things.

With rafting, I learned how to get a group of novices to work together quickly to play in the rapids and have fun; with kayaking, I learned much about overcoming fear and being able to trust; with racing, I learned how to sharpen my skills and got stronger, faster and more accurate with each race I took on.

HOWEVER, whenever I got to the river, got in my boat, and stuck my paddle in the first current, I noticed how unimpressed the river would be with all of my past accomplishments. Nothing from my past mattered except what I could put to use that day, that moment on the river.

In all my runs – whether it was with a group in a raft, or on my own in my kayak – I was successful when I was committed to the moment. And by successful I mean that I could experience the full joy of dominion over fear, of blending with the strength of the river and of increasing skill.

So, how does this translate?

When an experience is new to me or some new element or person has come into my experience, I find this lesson very helpful.

When the pride of experience tempts me to plow through another’s obstruction, I remember that a river flows around the rocks, and I am careful not to get caught in the eddy of turbulent water behind the rock. I can be gentle, yielding, and not get caught up on a rock!

When another challenges how I do things, I remember to not stand on the things I did in the past, but on what wisdom directs me to do now. Progress is a law of God and so is constantly working. I can listen.

The river is constant; constantly moving and will find its own level. God is constant, and as God’s expression, we are constantly moving and expressing all of God’s qualities. We will all find our own level of expression that is full and satisfying, strong and enduring and joy-full!

Mary Baker Eddy shares these ideas from an article from Miscellaneous Writings (p. 224):

We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms.

Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it.....

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.