We spend so much of our lives getting ready to live. Years ago I heard a mantra from Randy Harris that I think is terrific. It has four parts. I will be incompetent. That is not a goal, but a confession before the fact. The standards I am pursuing are idealistic and important. I will not abandon the ideal. I will be incompetent. I will be fully present. I will see Christ in the face of every person I encounter. I will be Christ in every situation I encounter.
When Annie Dillard speaks of The Present, she is living in the now. I wonder how long we can pay attention to one thing. How long does an experience last? I wonder if we could pay more attention. Consciousness is an interesting concept. When the lights flicker on behind the eyes, when the neural network opens for reactive input, do we have any control? Consciousness is vital, but self-consciousness is (or can be) a hindrance to being fully present.
Have you had those moments that you wish would at least pause? We want to soak in it, or soak it in. It is too much to think it could last forever, but it could slow, couldn’t it? I am sure that is why we love photographs, or paintings. We will even call it ‘a capture.’ But that is not really true. The ‘capture’ is in our memory, and the ‘capture’ is nothing more than an aide for remembering.
Dillard writes:
- This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. (80)
- Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall. (82)
- There are a few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present. (83)
- Michael Goldman wrote in a poem, ‘When the Muse comes She doesn’t tell you to write; / She says get up for a minute, I’ve something to show you, stand here.’ (85)
- I want to come at the subject of the present by showing how consciousness dashes and ambles around the labyrinthine tracks of the mind, returning again and again, however briefly, to the senses. (88)
- Dorothy Dunnett: There is no reply, in clear terrain, to an archer in cover. Invisibility is the all-time great cover; and the one infinite power deals so extravagantly and unfathomably in death ... makes that power an archer, there is no getting around it. (91)
- The least brave act, chance taken and passage won, makes you feel loud as a child. (91)
- Arthur Koestler wrote, “In his review of the literature on the psychological present, Woodrow found that its maximum span is estimated to lie between 2.3 and 12 seconds.” (93-4)
- In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found ‘an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 spring tails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various members of 12 other forms ... Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae – in a mere teaspoon of soil.’ (95)
- The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. (98)
- Like water flow: Ease is the way of perfection, letting fall. (102)
- You don’t run down the present, pursue it with baited hooks and nets. You wait for it, empty-handed, and you are filled. You’ll have fish left over. (104)
