Living in the Now: Abandonent to Divine Providence #2

Apropos of the challenge of living in the present moment, I was recently at a college event where former Senator George McGovern, the '72 Presidential candidate, was describing a devastating event in his own life-- the night when police came to his door and told him the tragic news that his daughter had been found frozen to death after a bout of drinking. McGovern had been talking about Abraham Lincoln, the topic of his latest book, and about Lincoln's life-long struggle with depression. He had then made the connection to seeing his daughter's struggle with depression, then alcohol, and about the terrible circumstances of her death. I don't think his remarks were scripted, but rather that somehow he felt moved to trust the audience with his vulnerability in that moment. It was very powerful... hearing this influential and well known public figure, now in his late eighties, speaking from that place... I don't think that there was a dry eye in the whole crowd, except for a man sitting nearby.

He was shifting his attention between some balance sheets on his lap and his blackberry, which he held surreptitiously at his side. It is hard to say why he was there, and indeed, it was his own business what he was doing. But I couldn't help but feel that he had missed out on something so significant, a moment of profound connection between McGovern and his audience, the several hundred of us gathered there for his talk. Indeed, the man looked up at the pause in the talk... when McGovern seemed to choked up to continue and took 20 seconds or so to compose himself, but hearing nothing, the man looked around and returned to the work on his lap.

Why do I mention this? I have been where that man was that night... my attention fragmented by multi-tasking. I have missed poignant and key moments as well, when someone was telling a very personal story and making themselves vulnerable, yet my attention was leaning backward into something that had happened earlier in the day, or was pre-occupied with some future event. Or maybe I was impatient to be someplace else, so not entirely present in the moment. I think you probably know what I am talking about... multitasking, fragmented attention, lack of presence.

In today's Gospel, Jesus seems to be speaking indirectly about how life in the Kingdom demands that we live without attachments, that we snap to attention in the moment by letting bygones be bygones and surrendering the future in trust-- discerning carefully what God's will is for us here, now.

Lk 9:57-62

As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding
on their journey, someone said to him,
 “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus answered him,
“Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
And to another he said, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.
But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord,
but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”
Jesus answered him, “No one who sets a hand to the plow
and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”


Living in the moment, fully present-- awake, aware, attentive... in some profound way, this is what is required of us to live in the Kingdom of God. And it requires that we practice "uni-tasking"-- doing one thing well at a time. It requires slowing down our minds from their tendency to race ahead in anxiety or to dwell in an unhelpful way on what has already happened. It requires a willingness to be fully present with undivided attention of mind and heart, so that we are available to the person or people at hand.