Each moment is full of possibility. Possibility for… Well that part is largely up to us. If Contemplation is an awakening to God's reality in our world as we have explored, then each moments carries within it, as Merton observes the "germs of spiritual vitality" or the "seeds of contemplation." The question is, are we awake enough to comprehend it or prepared to notice it? While the possibilities are endless of what God could be up to in each moment, we are usually unaware of this reality. For these germs or seeds will pass us by unless they meet with the soil of love, and openness, and compassion, and those whose soil has been properly tilled. Silence, Solitude, Prayer, Reading Scripture, Worship, Acts of Generosity – these and other disciplines are just some of the ways we ready ourselves for what God is doing around us.
The reality is we will probably miss so many possibilities of potentiality today because our noisy world is too distracted to notice. It is not that proof for God isn't evident; it is too often that we are looking in the wrong places, with the wrong motivations, and without the eyes to comprehend it.
I have noticed that people love to use the world 'surreal' to describe almost every occasion. I wonder if that might be because we're so busy going from one event to another, we're never truly present in the present. When we're reminiscing it can be fun or shameful. When we're forecasting what is to come it can be exciting or fearful. What we have though, is this moment which, because of the God who is, was, and is to come, is so full of possibilities. What will we do with it?
Questions:
Are you prone to reminisce about the nostalgic past or daydream about future possibilities at the experience of the present? What would help you be more present to others and to God?
What might be some other reasons we fail to be fully present?
What helps you to be present and awake?
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