Meeting Every Moment

We started taking our kids backpacking when they were five and two years old.  It was a lovely experience, so much so that we repeated it five or six times every summer until they were in college.  I used to think that it was the beauty and stillness of nature that brought out such wonderful qualities in the kids.  The hike in, never more than 3 or 4 miles, would always be a somewhat uncomfortable endeavor which we all endured because we knew that once we were “there” we’d all settle into a lovely blissful space where we enjoyed each other and spent hours doing small simple things.  We were never bored.  Even the hike out, which was the same trek as the one in, tended to be a bounding, happy affair, magically lacking all the effort it took to get there.

 I am just beginning to understand that, yes, nature is beautiful and quiet, but the quality that really changed these adventures was that I was totally present.  The kids were not merely responding to the change in venue, they were perfectly capable of that joy in the backyard, they were responding to the change in the quality of my presence.    In the woods I was totally willing to be present, letting go of the planning and effort it took to get there, and not yet worrying about what needed doing at home or at work when we got “back.”

I’ve had the opportunity to test this theory:   It is the quality of attention, not the external situation that determines the quality of my experience.  I have demyelination of the nerves in my brain and probably in my extremities as well.  The underlying infection that led to this condition has been treated, but the residual damage has meant three years of constant and intense burning pain that may never go away.  There is no known way to remedy the damage once done.  The only choice I have is in how I am going to respond.

 I didn’t always believe that and I jokingly tell people that I know all about how to make pain worse, but I haven’t yet figured out how to make it better.  Struggling through this time when all I wanted was for my life to be different, I was finally forced to surrender to how it actually is.  Reaching my limit, I was graced with an awareness that is more than adequate to cope with pain.  In this reality, living a beautiful and happy life, even with pain, is not only possible, it’s inevitable. 

When I speak about simply enjoying what is, it is with the recognition that “what is” is always infused with unconditional love.   The deep Silence that characterizes this love is a rich and connected place.  We are not separate from each other or from what is happening in the world around us.   Aware actions are moved by love and they carry with them an unmistakable and powerful force far beyond what we could ever do alone.

 It is no wonder that every culture in the world has struggled to articulate a description of this force.  We, in the hubris of our intellectual superiority, have often judged such stories as merely myth and rejected them as expressions of a simpler time.  The truth that propelled the writing of those stories is still a living, breathing reality.   Its expression in our time may take a very different form, but it will be rooted in the same infinite and eternal reality.  We will not really know it unless we are willing to actually meet it in every moment of our lives.