Just Be

Early May...Spring clearly here...I walked out onto the deck and ventured to the pond on our vacation rental.  There had been much hard rain overnight and the water was somewhat of a murky brown.  There on the surface, I saw this green, solitary leave...dappled with waterdrops.  Just floating, just being.

How do I just "be"...be still...be a presence...be enough?  So many times my mind is racing so fast and I am caught up in endless activity...and when I am trying to have downtime, I still feel the need to be "doing" something.  How much do I miss because I don't stop?  What lessons do I not learn because I'm occupied?  And how many times do I do fumble the ball and cause damage trying to fix something by inadvertentlyy saying something stupid, rather than just be a presence for someone who is going through a difficult time?

My camera slows me down.  Writing slows me down.  But often, especially in my work world, I am more of a Martha vs. a Mary person.  And even if my body isn't flying around...my thoughts are.  And I know I am not alone.  Even in the quiet, I'm thinking about a to do list or on the weekend thinking about what I need to do on Monday.  My thoughts ruminate and I get stuck.  And then I wonder, "Where is God?"  In essence, wondering why I do not feel close to him.  A perfect passage explains it in I Kings 19 how often God comes in a whisper that we cannot hear because we do not stop to listen...not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

I've come to believe that living fully in the present is a spiritual discipline.  It is my responsibility.  C. S. Lewis  paraphrases in the movie,  Shadowlands, about a painting he had in his nursery:  "We live in the shadowlands. Sun is always shining somewhere else... around a bend in the road... over the brow of a hill."  Eluding to how we are always wanting to be somewhere else other than where we are.  And yet, as a Christian, we are to be as children, just delighting in NOW.  Later in the movie, C. S. Lewis comes across the actual place in the nursery painting and says to his new wife, Joy:

You know, I don't want to be somewhere else anymore.
I'm not waiting for anything new to happen...
not looking around the next corner and over the next hill.
I'm here now. That's enough.

- That's your kind of happy, isn't it? (Joy)

Yes. Yes, it is.

I want to live as God has made me to live...to delight in Him...I'm here now. That's enough.

With gratitude,