“We’re never satisfied with the present; we anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if we can hasten its course, or we recall the past to stop its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times which are not ours and do not think of the only time which actually belongs to us. We are so idle that we dream of those times which are no more, and we thoughtlessly overlook the only time that exists. It's because the present is generally painful to us, so we conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us, and if it happens to be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and try to control matters which are not in our power, preparing ourselves for a time that we have no certainty of reaching. So we should each examine our thoughts, and will find that they are all occupied with either the past or the future; we scarcely ever think of the present, and when we do it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end; the past and the present are our means — the future alone is our end, and so we truly never live, but rather hope to live. And as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”
— Blaise Pascal
On February 12th, 2023, people all across the United States could be seen bustling about readying themselves for “The Big Game.” Snacks were purchased, meals were cooked, friends were invited over and families began discussing the odds of their preferred team getting the win. Another year, another game, another chance for the cycle to begin over again, and people from one side of the country to the other gave themselves up to a moment in time different from any other, yet repeated every twelve months with the regularity of a grandfather clock.
In one particular suburban neighbourhood in Northwest Arkansas on this unseasonably warm February evening I pulled up to a house I didn’t know to pick up a dear friend. Standing outside of my car as he barreled down the hill from the house I yelled to him to stop for a moment. The lights from the house behind lit him up as a silhouette ahead of me. The calls of children in the distance could be heard. A slight breeze was blowing, rustling my clothing and whispering around the other cars on the street and the trees in the yards. A calm moment, easily swept aside in the bustle of motion from one goal to the next.
I asked my friend to pause so that we wouldn’t simply let this moment pass without our taking notice. Moments like this have been catching my attention of late. As if God were using the ordinariness of the everyday to slow my pace, and remind me of the gift of today. It seems to me that a great effort is required to get us to slow down. We build such momentum through our constant movement that it takes something of great strength to rein us in. But I don’t think it was always this way. It seems to me that we (and perhaps others less benevolent toward humanity) have built a society perfectly tailored to distract us, keep us chaotically engaged with endless changing stimuli, and prevent us from really enjoying the moment in which we find ourselves — really savouring today for the unique point in time that it is. It seems as though we go about our lives making plans for some arbitrary future that we’ve no guarantee of reaching, thinking all the while that once we’ve made it there we will begin living — once we’ve achieved the career goals we have set, once we’ve the relationship we think we want, the car that we’ve been dreaming of, the house that will finally prove our independence and value in society. We set landmarks in the distant future and rush by the present to reach them, not even knowing if we will be happy when we’ve arrived.
I want to stop such frenetic movement in my life. It feels not like control but like chaos, as if in attempting to diligently plan the course of my life I end up handing the reins to someone else, not even knowing where they intend to lead me. I have unknowingly adopted a pace entirely unsuitable to building the sort of life that I know I deeply desire, a life of substance, gratefulness, peace, simplicity, and love. If I am to be always rushing onward toward tomorrow, certainly I will never truly enjoy today. And do I have anything else? I think not. Today is all any of us is given, and given it we are, for we could never obtain it for ourselves, under our own strength or in our own power. We have no power over time, but only the ability to live within its bounds, to enjoy its presence. Yet if we do not choose to do so, someone else will surely take the choice away from us.
Even now this choice lies before us. Today is here, and this is life. Will I pause, look around, and notice what I have been given? This sunlight, these eyes to see it, these people, this life. Whatever is before me, it is a gift. Will I take delight in it? Will you?
love,
Joel