Day 198 Now. Here. This.

The Gospel calls us into the here, now, and this of life.

Jesus shows us that it is possible to inhabit our own lives and engage reality on its own terms. Why is this so hard for us? The radical presence of Jesus opens us to live radically present lives and celebrate the sacrament of the present moment with all of its beauty and affliction. 

His presence affirms that this moment is sacred and good and stuffed to the gills with eternity. Unfortunately, it is also the moment that we are most prone to miss, because we fear this moment is empty of the goodness we so desperately desire. 

*Jesus invites to live now, not then. As if to make the point, Jesus' first word in the Gospel of Luke is "Today" (Luke 4:21), which is precisely what Jesus makes possible.  

*Jesus invites us to live here, not there. So much about here can be hard and so much about "there" is attractive, especially in a globalized, media driven world that can transport us anywhere and tempt us with the image of greener pastures. We are so easily tempted to forsake being here. 
  

*Jesus invites us to live this life, not some other one. We are given this life and no other which is why the poet Mary Oliver asks, "What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" It's a beautiful question that helps us show up for our own lives.

What simplicity. 

The season of Lent strips away distractions that hide the sacrament of the present moment and offers us a faith that infuses the ordinary, and even the ugly, with God's holy presence. Soon enough, the cross will lay all things bare, and reveal all things as they truly are. And so we ask for the grace to stay awake to the eternal here, now, and this of God's love even as things turn ugly.    

Etty Hillesum lived only a few miles from Anne Frank in Amsterdam and came to know the radical presence of God's goodness in the midst of unspeakable horror. It empowered her to live a radically present life to the bitter end. Her journals are unflinching, stunning, relentlessly honest--and filled with courageous generosity. On her way to Auschwitz, with full awareness that she would exterminated, she wrote,    

I know about the mounting human suffering. I know the persecution and oppression and despotism and the impotent fury and the terrible sadism.  I know it all. And yet--at unguarded moments, when left to myself, I suddenly lie against the naked breast of life and her arms around me are so gentle and so protective and my own heartbeat is difficult to describe: so slow and so regular and so soft, almost muffled, but so constant as if it would never stop.

Such is the courage and generosity of the enduring sense that even in the midst of utter horror that there is enough, that God is present, and that the universe is fundamentally good; because of this we can act accordingly.

Our lives want to be lived, inhabited, experienced, and engaged with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. We are desperate for this gift, and it is the gift that God is giving... Now... Here... This!

Here is a prayer idea for this week: As you pray, keep your feet on the ground; go for a walk or a run and stay rooted, stay in your body. Notice how easily distracted you are. Don't try to control these distractions as you pray, just notice them. Resist the temptation to judge what you see. Instead, bless each one of the thoughts as they pass by, half formed, unresolved and scattered. Can see a pattern to what flits across the screen of your mind? Now look underneath these scattered thoughts and feelings. What wants your deepest attention? Put your attention there and welcome it. Love, Mom