Jack King ⎮  Fall 2011

On December 22, 2003, somewhere in the skies between Dallas and Kansas City, Philip Cole gave up living in the present moment.  I’ve never met Philip Cole but I found myself holding his old copy of Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s spiritual classic, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, lifting it from a neglected, crowded shelf in my local used bookstore.  His Delta boarding pass, doubling as a bookmark, identified Philip as the prior owner of this little spiritual classic.  From these two items, I began imagining his story. 

Philip was assigned seat 2C on DL 2338 and there at the front of the plane (probably a cramped puddle jumper), he began reading de Caussade’s spiritual wisdom on the embrace of the present moment.  As the plane descended into Kansas City, he marked page 59, the last page Philip would read before he exchanged this little volume for pennies of trade-in value at McKay’s Used Book Store. How sad that he didn’t read a mere three pages more, specifically page 62 where de Caussade celebrates “the infinite riches which the present moment holds.”  Maybe it was his proximity to the jet bridge from 2C that made Philip hurriedly mark page 59 so he could beat the rush of passengers deplaning behind him. There’s no way of knowing exactly what awaited Philip when he landed in Kansas City.  I can only guess what distracted him away from further meditation on living in the present moment.  But this I can surmise from his impeded progress and subsequent trade-in:  Philip was drawn into the next moment, not the present moment.

It is a strange feeling to feel sadness for a stranger, but that was the abiding impression I had after the comic irony of my purchase subsided.  Philip’s interrupted progress was a metaphor of his struggle for a centered life amid countless distractions; his boarding pass/bookmark the symbol of an interior restlessness.  Some inner longing moved Philip in the first place to purchase a classic spiritual treatise by a 17th century French monk.  A man interested in a book about sacraments is usually longing for a sacramental life.  What might have happened if he deemed the sacrament of the present moment more urgent than other competing urgencies, both real and imagined, clamoring for his attention?

Underneath the curious question of a stranger’s heart is the real concern I sense for myself and everyone who follows Jesus in our highly mobile, technological world.  We are everywhere and we are nowhere.  The image is becoming all too familiar:  human beings are physically present, but mentally and spiritually absent.  Many of the conversations that happen in our world are broken up by a series of interruptions.  Deference is given to ringtones and text message alerts rather than choosing the sacred present with a human being in the flesh.   C.S. Lewis once said, “the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”  Lewis was speaking of the tremendous potential for godliness within any human being, but his words are even more significant in our technological age of constant interruptions and distractions.  We have mistaken the spectacular for the truly glorious.  With our minds, hands, and ingenuity, man creates endless spectacles of technological innovation and communication.  Somewhere we became disenchanted with the truly glorious which only God creates:  a human being fully alive. 

Some might protest that the communications revolution has established, preserved, and revived human connections that would have otherwise been lost.  True indeed.  Those who long for an attentive life with God and neighbor need not become Luddites.  Yet our gadgets and devices give us the illusion that the possibilities for communication are endless.  But technology cannot teach us wisdom and our enchantment with technology has made us forgetful of a fundamental truth about human beings:  we are limited, finite creatures.  We do not have endless reserves of energy to engage one another in meaningful conversations.  Without times of solitude and silence, the primary speech within our primary relationships (spouse, children, and dearest friends) flattens into abbreviated, functional communication.  We accomplish relational ‘business’—tasks, details, and plans—instead of engaging the depth and mystery of hearts and minds within the ones we love most dearly.  The next moment becomes a tyrant, a new pharaoh intimidating us that only constant planning and communication brings freedom.  All the while, the perpetual next moment quickly desecrates the present moment.  Where a sacrament is distorted into a burden instead of a gift, one can be sure that the Enemy is near.  And it is time we recognize that the constant distractions in our hectic world are the Enemy’s stratagems which hinder us from transforming encounters with God and one another.  

So perhaps receiving the sacrament of the present moment anew begins with a confession: we are increasingly unfamiliar and unlearned in the kind of living encounter where each dimension of our personhood—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—converges in a meaningful exchange with another human being.  When St. Cyril of Jerusalem looked on a gathering of catechumens in the 4th century, his first words of instruction concerned their full presence.  “If your body be here but not your mind, it profits you nothing.”  So also our relationships with God and one another in our day.  We cannot continue to look past one another to the next task or appointment.  Human beings are image bearers of the living God and life together is too precious for partial presence with one another.  Thanks be to God that he has given the present moment a sacramental nature. 

From confession one learns the gift of the present moment through the active repentance of silence, solitude, and listening.  This kind of repentance is not burdensome either, for the most meaningful speech in relationship emerges from silence.  Every serious musician understands that music would deteriorate into a raucous cacophony of noise without regular moments of rest within the score.  In the same manner, the sacrament of the present moment bears a distinct relationship with times of solitude and rest. Listening to God always precedes speech with our neighbor.  Listening is reception of the present moment; receiving the present moment awakens our spirit to the movement and gift of God in the living ‘now.’

Even when one seeks a more attentive life, lived in each present moment, there is a temptation to romanticize “the sacrament of the present moment” as a tranquil, sublime way of life.  But the truth is that the life of awareness and full presence is incredibly demanding.  When we seek the present moment, we experience resistance within ourselves.  The source of resistance isn’t a mystery:  our minds have absorbed all manner of noise and busyness for years.  Distracted, noisy minds are not sanctified overnight.  Thus, attentiveness to the Holy Spirit, the other, and one’s own self in any given moment often feels more like an interior wrestling match than the deep repose of a centered soul. 

Rather than an alarming surprise, this wrestling is our more native identity as those who serve the Creator God. As sons and daughters of God, adopted by the Spirit into the new Israel, we only need remember the meaning of the name “Israel”:  one who wrestles with God.  In our day, that wrestling has been defined by our squirming for the tyrannical next moment.  Yet, it seems God would wrest us away from the future which brings so much anxiety by calling us to surrender our hearts and minds to his activity in the living ‘now.’

Ultimately, this is a worthy fight for every follower of Jesus, not just introverts or contemplative spirits. From busy executives to weary teachers to exhausted factory laborers, every member in the priesthood of all believers is called to receive the sacrament of the present moment.  Regardless of one’s industry or lifestyle, the commandment of Jesus is the same:  “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”4 

To be sure, the sacrament of the present moment is not a law unto itself, for centeredness is not the highest goal of the Christian life.  But the present moment is a sacred gift that frees us for obedience to the highest Law, the Great Commandment affirmed by Jesus himself:  love of God and neighbor.  How can we love God and one another if we are not fully present ourselves?  It seems we must admit how impoverished we are by our distractions.  But the good news is that God looks on a broken spirit with endless mercy and compassion.  After all, sacraments are gifts of God that we don’t deserve based on our own merit.  And we receive the sacrament of the present moment in the same manner we receive the Church’s supreme sacrament, the Eucharist:  with open hands.   With those open hands, surely we will receive God in each moment of the living now, and surely he will open us to depths of loving relationship with one another that give us a foretaste of eternity in the living now.