It is so wonderful when I get to reveal myself just as I am. It is one thing to experience myself, know myself so well that I am aware of myself just as I am. It is a gift that another gives when they make the reveal of that self-awareness possible.
Those are the times when the sun rises once again inside of me and I not only understand myself as I am but also have that moment to reveal the awareness as well.
I find it amusing how much of my life has been shaped by my imaging what might lie beyond. Sometimes I think I gave more weight and concern about what significance things had in the beyond than the significance they had in the present, here and now. With others, I questioned so many times what happens after death. Then I weighed and judged the present based on my imagined beyond.
Sometimes, I think I allowed my notion of the present to be shaped more by the imagined beyond than the reality I experienced right now.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time living in an imaginary world that exists beyond what presents before me and I have followed the rules of that world. I’ve worried about future consequences beyond any thing available to my experience. I remember fearing that I would suffer damnation in the beyond if I ate, even accidentally, a hot dog on Friday or went to a “B” movie.
I participated in a serious graduate school discussion of whether ordinations were valid if conducted by a bishop who had been baptized with cream rather than water. Only the beyond could give meaning to those kind of rules. I lingered over weighty and consequential questions rising from the reality that I supposed existed beyond.
Now I think that everything that matters is happening right now. Everything is connected to here and now, not some reality that exists beyond. My walking across the room, the sounds of birds singing, the smile of another person are all significant in themselves. For them I am grateful. They are enough for me to ponder, to enjoy, to experience fully. I am in touch with all that matters.
When I can grasp and appreciate the meaning and value of what is before me, that is enough. The meaning and value is not based on some unknown and imaginary beyond but on the knowable now.
What might lie beyond, after life, now seems so out of touch when I can actually touch and enjoy deeply what is here and now.
