I’ve written before how I refuse to live in the moment. I still stand by that. Mostly.

But here is something new (one more new thing in a season of new things): I’m learning to make my home in the moment.

If life is a river moving relentlessly forward, the present moment is like an eddy in the current.

It is too easy for me to press on and on, searching for whatever is next, desperate to fit the pieces together into some kind of meaningful pattern. Today brought this so tomorrow will bring … ?

But what if I can discern no pattern? What if, having reached the end of myself, God seems largely silent?

He may be the silent and invisible God, but he is never absent.

Sometimes, when I stop seeking, stop rushing (even if the rushing is only the rush of thoughts in my head), I realize that I am slowly circling.

Like that yellow leaf we saw in the puddle at the bottom of the hill.

I am caught in an eddy.

Why fight to keep moving? This is a good place to be. I could make my home here.

And it would be like this: a warm baby sleeping on my chest. The sounds of the high school football game blowing in on the wind. The crunch of technicolor leaves under my feet. Children with cold, pink noses.

A baby-boy-turned-big-brother who says, “Elll-saah. Elll-saah. Where is Elsa?”

 “Life isn’t long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!”

– Tasha Tudor (one of my very favorite children’s book author/illustrators)