It’s one thing to hope for and plan for the
future. It’s another thing to live in it before it arrives and, in so doing,
miss all the opportunities of today to
smile, appreciate, enjoy. Even in the darkest of times, light will shine
through the clouds. How many times have you played the game of: once the car
is paid off...once the kids are through college...once the new roof is on...once
the dentist bills are paid.once the house is fixed up, paid off, sold...once we
retire. THEN we'll be able to...
Dear
God of the Possibly-Maybe-Someday Stuff ~
All this business of "live for today and tomorrow will take care of
itself" is all well and fine but I have bills to pay, income to worry
about, house repairs that can't wait, and the car has issues and then there’s
the dentist bill, and, and, and... [insert long, s l o w,
d e e p, breath here]. Ok, all right, fine! For today I will give up looking so
far ahead that today is gone before I know it. I will take on setting
the cell phone timer to go off once an hour for 6 hours and when it does, I
will stand up, take one, long, slow, deep breath, and walk through the space I'm in. I'll take 30 more seconds to look around me
and notice something pleasant or peace-giving or comforting that I haven't
noticed before whether in my immediate surroundings or outside of a window; or,
I will look at a picture of someone I love and smile and be glad to have him or
her or them in my life. I will pray to be aware of
and to be thankful for all the good moments that I have for looking for them in this
day and the next and the next. I will thank You, Dear Lord, and remember that Life is a gift,
as someone once put on a tacky plaque that's why we call it the present. [You
know, the magnetic one I have on my refrigerator to remind me]. amen.
*Thích Nhất Hanh [Tick Not Hahn], 1926-2022, was a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, peace activist, teacher, prolific author, and poet who was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He wrote and lectured extensively on the connections between Buddhism and Christianity in such works as Living Buddha, Living Christ and Going Home, Jesus and Buddha as Brothers. He studied comparative religion at Princeton University and was appointed lecturer in Buddhism at Columbia University. He lived in a monastery in the south of France until his death but traveled frequently around the world to lecture.
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