Dear All of Us,
Webster got it wrong.
There is no reality match for the word
WHEN
No such thing exists. There is only
RIGHT NOW
We miss so much of
RIGHT NOW
waiting for the non existent
WHEN
"When I get my Masters..."
"When I loose twenty pounds..."
"When we get this country straightened out..."
"When the mortgage is paid off..."
"When I get my new pick up..."
"When I find the right church (religious group)..."
"When I have the time..."
"When we retire..."
"When we achieve (name your preferred justice issue)"
There are enormous pressures on us all in our
RIGHT NOW
a pandemic compounding,
governance angry and vindictive,
cultural chaos,
limits and lacks multiplying all over the place.
Not nice!
Those pressures push to a postponed now
we call when.
There's the real limit, the real danger.
We can't wait!
We can long for lots.
We can work for lots.
We can only do that,
we can only live
RIGHT NOW
There is this temptation to count on
that non existent when to become a now
before we can live freely and fully.
That's a fake out.
It stalls and stymies.
We just cannot wait for things to get better,
for church, government, financial,
and societal reform to the ideal.
What we get and what we give are
RIGHT NOW
or not at all.
People living in war zones, in dictatorships,
in abject poverty, in loveless families,
know what we need to learn in our tough time.
There are hardships
and frustrations,
but you go on in the flow of
RIGHT NOW
We can kick and scream
about how it is
RIGHT NOW
but we need to
full face it and live it
RIGHT NOW
There are all manner
of good and delight
that are current,
that can only be embraced
in our
RIGHT NOW
What Isaiah said to Israel
and Paul repeated to the Corinthians
about their now
we need to heed in ours
" See, now is the acceptable time;
see, now is the day of salvation."
II Corinthians 6:2
Put another way, now is the only river
to float your boat.
Peasant mystic and philosopher, Peter Maurin,
spoke to the now of living the GodLife.
He said we should not await
some presumably propitious moment,
some idealized when.
Rather we need to move in that river of now.
"The future will be different
if we make the present different."
That is a flowing now.
Maurin had a "gentle personalism" about him.
He lived a radical Gospel life
right where, when, as he was.
He teamed up with Dorothy Day to do that,
opening a house of hospitality
in the slums of Depression New York. (1)
He didn't wait for a when of better.
He lived a best of now.
Whatever our situation and setting
in this turbulent, treacherous
RIGHT NOW
it is the moment, the only moment,
in the movement of now.
This is where
we live out our True Selves,
we flow in mystic GodLove
we companion others in love and service
we are currents of creativity and justice
We sure don't want to miss the boat.
We open wide to every goodness and grace offered.
We open wide to every goodness and grace we can offer.
We don't wait for a when of better.
John Wesley lived a spirituality of
RIGHT NOW
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
to all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."
That's ALL for
RIGHT NOW
(please take that a couple of ways)
John Frank
******
Welcome to all new here.
We had first ever visits this week
from folks in Mozambique and
sizeable groups from Canada,
Germany and Sweden.
Thanks for sharing this right now.
******
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- is posted each Thursday by mid-day
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
- is delivered by email each Friday
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- past postings are available from Blog Archive
right column above
******
Life can't be put on hold.
It's an immediate connection.
******
(1) See "Introduction," Dorothy Day:
Selected Writings: By Little and by Little,
ed. Robert Ellsberg (Orbis Books:2005), xxv
