ME FEELING THE FULLNESS OF THE MOMENT

 

One month into 2023 finds Ed and me in a wait-and-see mode on multiple fronts. We have submitted our latest book manuscript, Healing the Wound: The Inner Turmoil of a Mennonite Hero, to Wipf and Stock Publishing and are waiting to hear back from them. We have placed our new Oregon coast house on the market and are waiting for it to sell.

The outcomes on both fronts will determine much of what our lives will look like in the coming months and years.

And patience has never been my long suit!!

Well-meaning friends tell us they are hoping for the best. But I’m thinking this is a time for us to practice faith rather than hope.

Here’s how the dictionary defines faith and hope:
Faith is complete confidence in someone or something in the absence of proof.
Hope is an optimistic attitude based on an expectation or desire.

There’s nothing wrong with optimism, but it’s the “expectations” part of hope that has gotten me into trouble in the past. Besides, how could Ed and I not have complete confidence that the highest and best outcomes will occur – as they always have in our lives?

So this is my daily prayer practice: “I trust, allow, and delight in what is right here, right now.”

Our spiritual teacher, Richard Rohr, says “prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a life stance. It’s a way of living in the presence, living in awareness of the presence, and even of enjoying the presence.”

The secret, he says, is learning to live in such a now. “The now is not as empty as it might appear to be or that we fear it may be. Everything is right here, right now.”

May we all feel the fullness of everything right here, right now!