Noticing the Now

"Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth, but make a habit of obedience."                                              

                                                           1 Peter 1:13-14   Universalis

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Lord, show me your ways

– and teach me your paths.

My little daughter asks this morning as I was taking her to her friend’s house to play and had forgotten where I was going,
“Do you have old timer’s Mom?” 
“Old timer’s? Don’t you mean Alzheimer’s?” 
“No, I mean when you get old and can’t keep everything from getting mixed up.” 
“ Oh well, then maybe I do from juggling so much.”
“Well then, you really should just focus on one thing at a time.
Like right now you are taking me to Alex’s house and this is all there is.  And then you are going to do the next thing and go to the store and buy food and then that will be all there is.  It’s easy, just the one thing at a time and then they won’t get mixed up.”

From the mouths of babes. 
And how I do hold too many things and distractions at the same time. Things I worry about, things to get done in time, places I’m going and will go next, bills to pay, appointments to keep, food to buy and prepare and lessons and class to teach and on and on until I am disconnected and frazzled, wound and clenching.

There are moments, like the one today, the gift of my daughter’s words hold me and will not let go.

They settle in deep like September rain, slow and cool; they become song like the tall oak singing in the late autumn light above the field rattling a shimmer of golden rods.

They encircle my opening to all this light slanting through the car window,  glancing off her eyes that become, in their glistening, the green unfurling of May.

They tell of the truth to be here now, because where else are we really and where else is God but in this eternal present?  The in-breaking of love is always now.  I keep this in my heart like a tree bird songs, while throughout the moments I slowly, barely perceptibly, begin noticing the small and seemingly insignificant;

the surprising ways our Lord disguises.