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In his book Too Small to Ignore, Wess Stafford (President of Compassion) tells a story from his childhood on the Ivory Coast of Africa. About a village visited by a convoy of French colonial officials for a government survey. Their questions had to do with "expectations of the future." (Including numbers and size and growth and development.)
Stafford writes, "The chief and his tribal elders tried to explain to their exasperated visitors that they really didn't know the answers to those kinds of questions, because the future had not yet arrived. When the time came to pass, then the results would be apparent." This, to be sure, made the officials less than pleased. And they left, in a huff.
That day, at dusk, the village gathered in the chief's courtyard. He said, "I want to talk to the children tonight."
"We are not like them," the chief said. "To them time is everything. . .the smaller that men can measure the day, the more angry they seem to be."
"The present is now--the days we live today. This is God's gift to us. It is meant to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest. The present will flow by us, of course, and become the past. That is the way of a river, and that is the way of time. The Frenchmen cannot wait for the future to arrive. They crane their necks to see around the bend in the river. They cannot see it any better than we can, but they try and try. For some reason, it is very important for them to know what is coming toward them. They want to know it so badly that they have no respect for the river itself. They thrash their way out into the present in order to see more around the bend."
"They miss so much of the joy of today all around them.
Did you notice that as they stormed into our village, they didn't notice it is the best of the mango season?
Though we offered them peanuts, they did not even taste them.
They did not hear the birds in the trees or the laughter in the marketplace.
We touched them with our hands, but they did not really see us.
They miss much of the present time, because all they care about is he unknowable, the future. . .The present is all we can fully know and experience, so we must."
"We must love each other. We must smell the hibiscus flowers. We must hear the singing of the weaverbirds and the grunts of the lions. We must taste with joy the honey and the peanut sauce on the rice. We must laugh and cry and live."
Whether he knew it or not, the Village Chief took Jesus seriously. Remember when Jesus said, "Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you."
Meaning, "is... right here--in the midst of you--right now."
Meaning, this ordinary moment can be a container of grace.
The Celts called some places, 'thin places', places when and where the sacred is almost palpable.
"All of earth is crammed with heaven
And every bush a flame with God
But only those who see take off their shoes."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So. What's our alternative? We can walk in reverence, taking off our shoes. Or we can tell ourselves that the kingdom is yet to be, somewhere in the future, something we are willing to give up today for. And we give up who we are today, for who we think we should be.
This week I am in Spain with a friend. We are on an adventure writing about Sherry wine--the name taken from el ciudad, Jerez de la Frontera--anglicanized to the word sherry. We began in Valdepenas on the high La Mancha plain, the home of Don Quiote. We sipped wine and chased windmills if only in our minds. Two more days in the town of Grenada, spending one day strolling the Alhambra (a palace dating to the mid-14th century built for Muslim emirs in Spain), imagining the lives of Moorish princes--which was not easy to do given the wind chill reading of 25 degrees Fahrenheit. In the old town of Grenada, nightlife begins during the dinner hour, around 10 pm, and stretches well past midnight. The streets and tapas bars teem with celebration, including young and old. The air vibrates with élan and delight. We finish our evening in a small Flamenco club, the music pulsating.
I was heartened by reading Eugene O'Kelly's book, Chasing Daylight. It is a book about the last three months of his life. O'Kelly reinforces what we all know to be true. This moment, I have a choice. I can receive the gift of life and embrace it, and immerse myself in it. Or, continue to live in oblivion, asleep, distracted, and waiting. And in the process, we bury the very things that might set us free (borrowing from Stephen Levine). Such as stopping, stillness, listening, hearing, tasting, touching, seeing, smelling and embracing.
In an episode of The West Wing, CJ Craig (White House chief of staff) is wired, tense and distracted. Her love interest shows up, middle of the workday, at her White House office, "to take her for a walk." She consents (but not without a fight, you know, so much "to do"). On the walk, she fidgets and asks, "So, what was so important, taking this walk."
He says, "Just to see."
"Well," she tells him, "this is not the day for it."
Sure, I want to live this moment mindful of the sacred, but this is not the day for it. As if there is a special day for it? In our western mindset, living in the present becomes a staged event. Staged to be "spiritual." As if this is something we must orchestrate. Or arrange. And we sit stewing in the juices of our self-consciousness. Am I present? What am I doing right or wrong? All the while, missing the point.
A Hasidic Rabbi was interrupted by one of his followers while he was tending his garden, "What would you do, rabbi," the student asked, "if you knew the messiah was coming today?" Stroking his beard and pursing his lips, the rabbi replied, "Well, I would continue to water my garden."
Its about making the choice:
To be open.
To be available.
To be curious.
To be alive.
To be willing to be surprised by joy.
You live your life as if it's real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Leonard Cohen
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