Now Matters

If we realize that we have choice then we should acknowledge that what we do at each moment really matters and has real eternal consequences (assuming time marches always forward, never backwards). This acknowledgement may not show us what to do, but rather it points to an attitude of how to live (with a sense that all my choices matter and have effects beyond what I may ever know), which in turn points to the type of person we should all seek to become--> someone who is fully engaged in each moment and who siezes the day the opportunity, the conversation, not simply because we may not have tommorrow but because here and now, each person I run into, each interaction, each chunk of time, can be siezed as a small gift, a small point of traction between myself and the universe. When your car is spinning out of control, a small bit of traction can be the difference between life and death). There is so much that is out of my control, the planets in their orbits, the tides, the place and general circumstances into which I was born. The natural processes, and physical make-up of my body. But at each and every moment (also called right now) I am given a small slice of the time-space continuum as something that is under my control, or if not under my control, under my influence. I can choose a red shirt or a blue shirt and its up to me. I can do it randomly, I can choose it based on my emotions, I can even go shirtless, and it is all up to me. I can't control my neighbors shirt color, but why do I need to when I can control my own. The shirt choice I make will effect my day, it will affect what others see, it will affect how warm I am should the sun come out,.... a host of effects ripple out from my choice. What is cool is that we are given so much more of a choice then just our t-shirts. ...

What I want to say is that we should sieze upon whatever we are doing with gusto realizeing that it is important, even while at the same time realizing that we could have done things differently and that they could have turned out differently, and thus we should choose wisely in the moment, but more importantly we should live in the moment, get to know the moment, and the people we meet their, set up camp in the moment, perhaps maybe learn to love the moment, as a place of freedom, where (within contraints of various kinds) we can act with total freedom. We can choose freely, I am getting excited over this, but only because I sense that not everyone realizes that they can choose freely... we are not bound to repeat past mistakes, we are not bound to our lusts, we are not controlled by brain implants, we are not insentient robots, we are children skipping through a field of daisies, and we can pick any flower we want. Some of us are in smaller fields, we may have less daisies to pick from, but freedom is still their. I suppose those people who find themselves alone in a huge valley of daisies should rightfully be confused about which to pick. These children should go and get others to share the bounty.

As I have already alluded, our choices are indeed contrained. We can not do anything we imagine. But I do not want total freedom, I do not want the ability to control others minds, or to make stars and planets collide willy-nilly. Although both abilities would enable some fantastical and crazy things, it would be more then I could bear. I need first to learn how to properly use my slice of time-space as a finite, prone-to-fail, often-sad, continually-perplexed-and-amazed, sometimes-reckless, often-horny, occassionally-gleeful human. Their is enough complexity in the world and people around me, and enough complexity in my head, to keep me going and growing for a lifetime. And I think that that is the point. To go and grow. I don't want to stay and shrink. I want to live and die alive, rather then sit and live dead. There is enough for each of us in this life, (or at least there is enough for me in mine), even when we think there is nothing left, or nothing worth pursueing, there is. And even if all the moments that come at me are random, even if I meet one person out of each million on this earth, then I have the bright joy of choosing how to engage and love that person. I need not worry about the other 999,999 people, but I need focus dearly on him who comes my way, I need to establish myself in the moment, so that I can take in voyagers, whose present moment overlapps with mine, and serve them tea and crumpets, and we can talk about sports, or women, or adventures, or life in the full, in the fear, we can live into one another, instead of dieing past one another. And this mentality I hope will build community and a sense of purpose and life that will burn deeply in all who enter into it, and that will be mutually reinforced by co-engagers, and spread from engager to spectator like wildfire, like the holy sprirt.

May I learn to engage others more each day. May I learn to live more each day. May I each day awaken from the slumber of the previous day, as one arising from the dead, as one being resurrected from then into now, and may I acknowledge and learn to attribute this painful process of becoming real to The Real One Himself... Christ, Lord and Savior.