The Now

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This morning as I began reading through the Gospel of Mark I experienced a sudden download of thoughts distracting me. Thoughts of family issues and the election results of yesterday. I don’t know what it is about my brain but it has many rooms in it and sometimes there is activity in a lot of them, at the same time.  And so I deal with that by writing in journals, writing on index cards what chores are coming to mind, and writing here. It’s my attempt to have the activity in those rooms sit down and wait their turn! 

I will start with family issues (speaking of complex!). I want order and a plan. The more that plan is put into a spreadsheet or flow chart the better. I want order and organized stuff and a bi-annual purging of clutter.  My significant other? Not so much. 

The election yesterday? It was a success in many areas of the country for the Democratic Party. After the last Presidential election that success yesterday is very telling…of something. What could it be? I don’t know what it is but one of the rooms is calling out to me to consider some history, but I don’t have time for that, or really the inclination to assign time for that rabbit trail because isn’t history always in the making? 

Back to the Gospel of Mark. The first verse of the first chapter - “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The Son of God. Wow. I know that, yet reading this simple sentence was powerful to me this morning. Then in the next two verses we read, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” and I thought about three things reading these verses - the history, the future, and the Now.

The fact that Jesus is the Son of God straddles all segments of time and simply is. The declaration of His coming by Isaiah had happened in history, and then, as we read on through verse 8 I was struck by the experience being had of the people coming to be baptized by John the Baptist as the Now of the story. It states that ALL the country of Judea and ALL Jerusalem were coming out to him and were being baptised in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. It had to have been a very crowded, vibrant situation. And it was exactly what God had wanted to happen in the preparation for Jesus’s ministry…yet…I wonder what those people were thinking and doing during the Now of the event. Were they camping along the river not wanting to leave the moment? Were they writing articles about it? Discussing with others about it according to their interpretation of what it meant? Did a sect arise with plans to build a temple along the river Jordan to commemorate the revival? What human responses and reasonings arose from a truly God-planned event? What would I have done? Would I have wanted to camp out in the Now?

The fluidity of life is hard to exist in as we always want to grasp a hold of the support of the passing objects, or swim for shore, or even prefer the boat to swimming in this river we call our existence. Yet the truth is that we are all passing through and many others passed through before us. There is no static Now, just a collection of events as we pass through. God has a plan for the world and a plan for us and I am just thinking about my comfort and reasoning as I walk through my day planning this and that, evaluating events and experiences in my path. Do I put my Now into perspective of my journey and God’s will for me and my part in His will for this world? Do I? 

“Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Matthew 6: 9-13