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Now

I was slightly traumatised last week when I discovered that "Now That's What I Call Music 124" has been released in the UK. I remember buying the first one as a Christmas present (on vinyl) back in 1983... So to discover there have been 123 further editions since then makes me feel very old, and prompts all kinds of whistfulness about the past.
I'm from Northern Ireland, and because of the peculiarities of my accent some of my friends who do not hail from this part of the world mock my pronunciation of the word "now", in the same way that I mock my Ayrshire wife's pronunciation of the word "poem."
But not only can I not pronounce the word "now" normally (according to some people), I also have difficulty in appreciating it and living in it... Not only can I get stuck in periods of nostalgic mooning over the past, I can also descend into unhelpful rumination over various regrets. Or else I can spend so much time planning for or fretting over the future that it clutters up the present.
And so, out of some prayerful reflection this morning came this poem (or "po-yim" if you are my wife).

Now is all we have.
The past only exists
insofar as we allow
it to endure in our
memories, cheering
or weighing us down.

The future, likewise
is a phantom, clothed 
in hopes and fears,
that hovers ahead of us, 
obscuring the view, 
and hurrying us on.

Now is all we have.
Now is an arrow slit
into the eternal - 
finite and fleeting,
but filled with wonders
too often unnoticed.

God is not the One who was,
or the One who will be,
but the One Who Is,
eternally present.
So we should slow down, 
be still, and know the now.
Selah




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