Lulu Cooks and Tells: Embracing the present moment

1. Prayer

A Prayer to Savor the Moment

O Holy God, Loving Jesus, Blessing Spirit

You have made everything for its own time.

Help me open the gift of this moment,

A present from your heart to mine.

Draw my soul to your presence,

Grace me with acceptance for what is,

Bend my will to be present in the present,

Release my urge to control,

Unclutter my mind, quiet my spirit.

You are all I need in this moment.

As I see your beauty in this time,

I feel your eternity in my heart.

Amen

2. Meditation

https://youtu.be/xr_H18UcQCo?si=GBUa2S-5NNb-QRnv

3. Song

https://youtu.be/jYrx5nYjLhc?si=kqZegsWcCliylbLW

4. Narrative

Monday, November 20, 2017

Most religious people I’ve met—from sincere laypeople to priests and nuns—still imagine God to be elsewhere. Before you can take the “now” seriously, you must shift from thinking of God as “out there” to also knowing God “in here.” In fact, that is the best access point! Only inner experience can bring about a healing of the human-divine split.

Transformation comes by realizing your union with God right here, right now—regardless of any performance or achievement on your part. That is the core meaning of grace. But you have to knowthis for yourself. No one can do this knowing for you. I could tell you that God is not elsewhere and heaven is not later, but until you come to personally and regularly experience that, you will not believe it.

Authentic Christianity overcame the “God-is-elsewhere” idea in at least two major and foundational ways. Through the Incarnation, God in Jesus became flesh; God visibly moved in with the material world to help us overcome the illusion of separation (John 1:14). Secondly, God as Holy Spirit, is precisely known as an indwelling and vitalizing presence. By itself, intellectual assent to these two truths does little. The Incarnation and Indwelling Spirit are known only through participation and practice, when you actively draw upon such Infinite Sources. “Use it or lose it!”

Good theology helps us know that we can fully trust the “now” because of the Incarnation and the Spirit within us. It’s like making love. We can’t be fully intimate with someone who is physically absent or through vague, amorphous energy; we need close, concrete, particular connections. That’s how our human brains are wired.

Jesus teaches and is himself a message of now-ness, here-ness, concreteness, and this-ness. The only time Jesus talks about future time is when he tells us not to worry about it (see Matthew 6:25-34). Don’t worry about times and seasons, don’t worry about when God will return, don’t worry about tomorrow. Thinking about the future keeps us in our heads, far from presence. Jesus talks about the past in terms of forgiving it. Some say forgiveness is central to his whole message. Jesus tells us to hand the past over to the mercy and action of God. We do not need to keep replaying the past, atoning for it, or agonizing about it.

Yet, as practitioners of meditation have discovered, the mind can only do two things: replay the past and plan or worry about the future. The mind is always bored in the present. So it must be trained to stop running backward and forward. This is the role of contemplation.

Gateway to Silence:
God is right here right now.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Living the Eternal Now (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005), CD, MP3 download.

In the realm of time, so swiftly passing,
Life’s brevity, it leaves us gasping,
An internal clock, ticking away,
A countdown to seize each moment, each day.

There’s dreams to chase, places to explore,
People to love, yet unknown, for sure,
Memories waiting to be etched in our hearts,
Photos to capture, future joys to impart.

Sometimes it feels like a burden, a weight,
Anxiety creeping, our minds in a state,
But let’s remember, dear reader, today is here,
This moment, right now, let it be clear.

The future may beckon, with dreams yet to come,
But let’s not forget, where we stand, where we’re from,
For today is where our power lies,
In the memories we make, the love we’ll devise.

So let’s slow down, embrace the now,
Not stuck in the future, we’ll allow,
Our feet to be grounded, our heads held high,
In this present moment, let our spirits fly.

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is yet to be,
But today, dear reader, is where we’re free,
To make the most of each precious day,
Spreading love, kindness, along the way.

So keep your head where your feet are planted,
In the now, let life be enchanted,
For life is too short, a fleeting chance,
Embrace the present, in this joyful dance.

Hope you liked the poem.

Dancing Elephant author Kennedie post beautifully expresses the journey of rediscovering the joy of life, building relationships, and embracing new experiences. Read on to understand the blessing of having a sisterhood.

5. Meditation

https://youtu.be/p3CzxrSQGcQ?si=IIdKIlD9S6M0siv8

6. Sharing

7. Prayer and Intentions

Vessel of grace-
throughout your brief journey
you entered every moment of life
and embraced it completely-
knowing it was there
that you would encounter the face of God.

You trusted in
Divine protection,
Holy guidance,
and graced nourishment

-just for today-
recognizing that the present
is the only place

where God can be revealed.

How much of my own time is wasted
outside of God’s shade,
worrying about yesterday
and planning for tomorrow.

Release me from these anxieties
and my own need to control…
Free my soul to fly with the Spirit
in each breath that I take,
reminding me that all I have is NOW!