Now is What We Have
Saturday is an interesting day for me. Friday is my day off, and I am quite vigilant about turning off the monkey mind and refueling in the rest. Sunday is a work day, which usually has me teaching or providing some sort of leadership to the gathering of our church community. So I refer to Saturday as a stretch day, which is a tricky balance of trying to be present in this day, while also stretching for and towards tomorrow’s teaching.
And my mind often functions like a massive neon sign, so those who are with me know whether I am actually with them… or if I am somewhere else.
Which is yet another reason why I am grateful for practices to help keep me present. Because there is only, Just This Moment. This moment is all we have. Five minutes from now, an hour from now, and tomorrow are all technically just theories. Now is the only reality we have. Which reminds me of an ancient story that involves a guy named Moses, Presence, and being present…
The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and be here…” (Exodus 24:12)
What odd wording. Come here… and be here. The rabbis offer midrash, commentary, to help us out. They highlight our human tendency to plan, prepare, and be thinking about what’s next, so we often miss what currently is. It’s as if the Divine knows Moses will be preoccupied with thinking about when and how he will go back down the mountain, so the Divine simply says, “Come here, and be here.”
This leads to an earlier encounter with Moses, which leads to one of my favorite practices. In Exodus 3, Moses is a simple shepherd who is leading his flock through the wilderness, which is desert. It’s here that Moses sees a bush that is on fire, but it’s not being consumed by the fire. So he approaches to explore this phenomenon…
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, the Divine called to him from within the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
That phrase, “Here I am,” comes from the Hebrew word hineini, which means to be alert, to be fully present. Hineini communicates what it means to being fully present… in the present. Moses says, “I am here, I am alert and attentive to just this.”
Which takes us to a practice. When my monkey minds start chattering, or I find myself moving beyond stretching and full on trying to leap into what’s next… I close my eyes and inhale, “You are here.” and I exhale, “Here am I,” or “hineini.”
I call this, Hineini prayer, which helps keep me present. Alert to what is… because that’s really all there is.
