BEYOND WINTER: The
Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—
I read a lot of stuff about brain science and psychology, not to try to apply their insights to pastoral work, the way I used to do, since I no longer have any pastoral work, except occasionally when I try something I have learned on some unsuspecting friend, but to apply new insights to my own life. You would think that I would understand my own life pretty well by now, but no, the more I learn about it, the less I understand it.
One of the most frequent and common pieces of wisdom that confronts me is: live in the moment! I think that’s good advice. Don’t regret the past and fret the future; live in the moment. I try to do it…mostly.
Living in the moment is a great idea if the moment contains something worthwhile—something challenging or hopeful or wholistic or interesting or…
But I’m old. Most of my moments are just boring. So I live best in the moment by living in memory. Yes, that sounds contradictory. But it works… at least for me.
Like most old people, many of my most important memories are early ones, from when we were kids and young people. Those moments set the way for all our future moments. When those are present memories, they provide present moments.
Preachers don’t seem to visit in member homes much anymore, but in my preaching years, it was a regular part of the job. Mostly it was just to get better acquainted, and that was good, for when a real need arose—an illness, a wedding or funeral, a wayward child or lost job—the preacher already knew what was important in that home.
As a young preacher, I called especially in the homes of the elderly, because they were always at home. It was easy to find them. Also, I felt comfortable with them. Even though I was as much as sixty years younger, we had a lot in common, for I, too, had grown up with an outhouse, using a horse to get to town, killing chickens for Sunday dinner, making hay the loose-load way, picking field corn by hand…
One thing we did not have in common was memories. Certainly, I remembered my former days. I’ve always had a good memory. I had not lived long enough, though, to have many memories. Besides, I was interested in the future, not the past. My elderly members, though, would tell long and intricate stories of events about when they were barely into school, always with a bit of wonderment, like maybe they were telling me about it in case I had an insight that they could not find.
I had no idea 70 years ago that I would now be telling my own versions of those same stories, over and over, peering into them, trying to gain some insight about why they happened, and what they meant, and if I might have done them better in some other way. And then deciding, no, this is the way it was, and that is okay.
I live in the moment by taking all those past moments and bringing them forward into this moment.
When Phil Jackson was coaching the Chicago Bulls professional basketball team, he told them, “Trust the moment.” I think that is even better advice than “Live in the moment.” Trust it, because it contains all your moments, and that makes it whole.
John Robert McFarland
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