At a playground, a woman sits down next to a man seated on a park bench. "That's my son over there," she tells him, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater, gliding down the slide.
"He's a fine looking boy," the man said. "That's my son on the swing in the blue sweatshirt." Then, looking at his watch, he called to his son. "What do you say we go, Todd?"
Todd pleaded, "Dad, just five more minutes. Please? Just five more minutes."
The man nodded, and Todd continued swinging, his demeanor elated. Many minutes passed and the father called again to his son. "Todd, what do you think? Time to go now?"
Again Todd pleaded, "Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes." The man smiled and said, "O.K."
"My," the woman said, surprised. "You certainly are a patient father."
The man smiled, and said, "Last year, my older son Tommy was killed by a drunk driver while he was riding his bike, not far from here. I never spent much time with Tommy. And now, I'd give anything for just five more minutes with him. So I've vowed not to make the same mistake with Todd. He thinks he has five more minutes to swing. But the truth really is, I get five more minutes to watch him play."
I understand. It is easy to second-guess, or to fear dying an unlived life, or to castigate ourselves for wasted moments.
But here's the deal: Well-intentioned or not, nursed regret only puts more padding between the present moment and me--which includes the people and choices that are in my life today.
Life is about the choices we make now, with these five more minutes.
I just finished three days at the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, where I talked about Scandalous Love and a woman in the Gospel of Luke and how her incautious, imprudent anointing and kissing of Jesus' feet raised a few eyebrows. About a woman who finds herself--her equilibrium, her salvation, her healing and her wholeness--by falling in love. That place of vulnerability, when all of our boundaries--of control and answers and solutions and theological or religious piety--melt away, and we see who we are and what we want and who we can be and who we have pretended to be all along.
I like the take of this 83-year-old woman, "I'm not saving anything; I use my good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank. 'Someday' and 'one of these days' are losing their grip on my vocabulary."
My good friend knows wine. Writes about it, appreciates it, savors it. He also knows wine people. People with grand and exceptional wine cellars. He told me the story of a couple with one such cellar, a collection to admire. Now mature in age, the couple knew that their years were numbered, and that many of their friends had died with full wine cellars, those rare bottles collected for a special occasion. ("You know," he told my friend, "when we say we'll drink it when the occasion is right. And, for some reason, the occasion is never quite right.") So. They made a decision. They would collect no more wine. They would enjoy, take delight in and share the wine that they have. In their words, they decided to "drink their cellar."
What all of these stories have in common is savoring the sacrament of the present moment. Or, in the words of poet Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
Okay. Count me in. Just tell me how. Isn't that the magical question? HOW? Is there a way to do this? Is it something about our need to perform? If I'm going embrace the sacred present, I might as well excel at it! We need to cut ourselves some slack here, assuming that there is a big prize in spiritual well-being for people who have Aced the test on embracing-the-sacred-present technique. I do know this: Embracing the sacred present isn't a beauty pageant. And I have a hunch that
people who really do love (enjoy, live, give, embrace) life are literally, non-self-conscious about method or practice or performance.
In Rabbi Abraham Heschel's mind, it's even more basic.
"I would say an individual dies when he ceases to be surprised.
What keeps me alive--spiritually, emotionally, intellectually--is my ability to be surprised. I say, I take nothing for granted. I am surprised every morning that I see the sun shine again."
I suppose we can wag some internal finger and give ourselves grief for not using our time more wisely and "wouldn't it be better if" and so forth. Or we can try Jesus' three word counsel, "Do not worry," and just BE. (Although, truth be told, there is a good deal of adrenaline with worry, and it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.)
Over the past three days I've hugged old friends, made several new friends, listened to many stories (some happy, some sad), mugged for several selfies, and did my best to let everyone know that this moment is sacred and whatever script we have for the future can wait until after the next five minutes.
When the conference ended I pointed my rental car north toward the southern part of California's central valley, savoring the sunset as I drove. For a time it looks as if it balances on the very edge of the horizon. After the fierce globe dissolves, the sky is lined with rose colored clouds, swathes of paint, liberally applied with a fine brush, crossing a bleached blue sky.
