Hope is always out there. Focused on something in the future, something not now. As we turn the page into a fresh new year, it is natural for our focus to turn towards our hopes and dreams for the coming year. I have a lot of unsettled hopes for the future. I want things for my job, for my vocation, for my relationships, for my kids. Do I have hopes…sure. But if my hope is always focused out there somewhere waiting for my proverbial ship to come in…then my gaze always finds itself down the road, toward the horizon, locked on something that is not here yet. Waiting for something over there. When doing that, you know what I miss…right now. The very thing in front of me. It causes be to lose true presence and miss moments. And the irony in it all is the only way to the future hopes and dreams in front of you is through fully living, embracing, and learning from the now. But can we embrace what is in front of us?It may be darkness, sorrow, and brokenness. It may be stuckness, monotony, and boredom. Or maybe your now is filled with success, happiness, and joy.
No matter what is currently in front of you and no matter the wreckage of what lies behind, you can only get to what’s ahead by embracing and truly learning the lessons right now is teaching. As Alexander Shaia has so deftly put it, “You can’t get there by hoping, you can only get there by nowing.” The relationships I want aren’t going to come about through hoping. The connection with God and my kids isn’t going to materialize because I hope for them. Truly satisfying work, purpose and meaning doesn’t spring forth because I am hoping. All of these things only come forth in my dedication to nowing. It is in the present that life must be lived. Hoping for a distant figure or trapped in the failures or even the successes of the past won’t get me where I’m going. The bridge across is the now. Fully embracing and living in this moment, with its ups and downs, its despairs and heartaches, its joys and pains, is where full and abundant life lies. Can you embrace and even enjoy your now? Being quite honest, you will always find yourself trapped and slanted toward despair if you’ve pinned all your hopes on some other state found on some other distant shore.
So for 2019 I’m going to begin it right when I ended 2018, in the now. My now has a lot of unsettled, tangled loose ends. They aren’t all tidy. There’s a lot of darkness, blind curves in the road, because my now is probably the least settled that it has ever been. And you know what? That is okay. My happiness and joy does not depend on figuring everything out, on making progress toward my hopes and dreams, on something that I don’t already have in my possession. I’m embracing all of my now. It all belongs and it all is enough.
May you find life as you live in your now. May you not miss the beauty in the stolen moments that will present themselves to you this day and every day. As you look toward 2019 may you not get lost scanning the horizon for something not here yet. May you embrace the beauty at your very feet, warts and all, and learn the lessons of your now. Here’s to you and me and “nowing” in 2019.
From The Whale's Belly 