Word for Word 7/29/26

The Present Moment

The air was already hot and humid. Even though it was still early morning, my  hair stuck to the back of my neck.

I was kneeling in a small garden, next to a single oil bean tree, its dried pods scattered like spiraled ribbons on the ground. There were no flowers or grass, only some weed clusters at the base of the 12-foot concrete wall topped with rolls of barbed wire, that surrounded our compound in inner-city Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

After years of talking about Africa, planning to go to Africa, I’d finally arrived.  I had my entire 10-year plan laid out after I returned home, but it all changed that morning. “Joanna, all the plans you have are your plans, not Mine.” That was it - so simple, yet so thoroughly and completely destructive to the future I had all mapped out.

Imagine a ship at sea. In the days prior to complex navigational equipment, a ship’s captain was constantly checking the stars, the sun, his compass, and all his natural resources to make sure he was on course to reach his destination. If he found, that due to wind, the current, or perhaps a storm, he had deviated from the set course, he would make a course correction. Even the smallest degree of change would make a tremendous difference over time. Apparently, I had been in need of a serious course correction - how could I have missed all the signs?

When I was 16 I providentially discovered an unassuming little book called “Practicing the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence.  In its modest but profound pages I read about how Bro. Lawrence, a simple monk, sought to live out each moment of his day in the presence of God. He talked about embracing each action, each person, each duty or interruption that came to him as the hand of God moving in and throughout his day, gently guiding and orienting him to the proper course. In his letters he shared about his main practice of prayer being that of attention - carrying on a “habitual, silent, and secret conversation with God that fills me with overwhelming joy.”

Brother Lawrence noted: “The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.” If Brother Lawrence was a sea captain he was constantly gauging the wind and the current, so to speak, in order to most closely follow the eternal “I Am.”

It sounds so beautiful in theory - living in the present moment. However, psychologists tell us that often most of our conscious thoughts dwell on the past - replaying old conversations, fighting old battles, or reliving past joys or hurts. Alternatively, if we’re not in the past, our minds leap ahead to the future, playing out our idealized hopes, and often our fears of what might happen. That was me that hot morning in the garden - headed full steam ahead towards a romanticized mirage in the future that had no actual basis in reality.

Then, of course, there is the distraction we seek out in media for its numbing effect. But none of these - the phantom past, the fantasies of the future, or our deadening distractions - are truly real, they are mere shadows, like Plato’s cave, that take up an inordinate amount of time and energy and keep us living apart from the full light of day.

I remember listening to an interview with a gentleman that had the opportunity to visit face to face with the late Mother Theresa in Calcutta, India. He said they rode in a taxi cab together and she was remarkably present. Numerous other people have commented about how Mother Theresa was always incredibly direct and intensely focused, having an outstanding ability to lock onto any individual she was with, whether it was a world leader or a young child.

One Christian leader sought out Mother Theresa for spiritual direction and after an hour of her attentive listening, while he explained all of his spiritual maladies, was given this succinct advice: “Spend one hour a day before the face of Our Lord and treat each person in front of you as if they are Christ Himself.” It certainly worked for her.

So here we are - right here, right now. You are reading the paper. Christian psychologist Dr. Gregory Popcack, in his book “Unworried: A Life Without Anxiety”, shares a little exercise called grounding that never fails to reconnect me to the present. “Count five things you see, four things you hear, three sensations you are feeling in your body. Identify two people who care about you, and one simple thing you could do to feel even a tiny bit better right now.”

Take a moment to become aware of Christ’s presence, just remaining there like a flower basking in the light of the sun and allow Christ to reorient your ship to what is good and true and now. Seek to remain in this place today as you go about your tasks and interact with individuals - knowing that hidden in the present moment is an “immense ocean of grace and infinite treasure.” (“Abandonment to Divine Providence” by Fr. J.P. de Caussade, S.J.).

Joanna Downing
Member of St. Patrick Catholic Church