living in the present | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The three legged runner is the symbol of the beautiful Isle of Man which I loved exploring.

Ah, that’s me. One foot in the past—well, naturally, I am writing a memoir. One foot in the present, trying to live each day well. One restless foot leaping into the future, planning, dreaming.

But perhaps the most important talent we can cultivate is to be happy in the present moment. To mine and celebrate the gold in it. To choose happiness in it.

For if we do not learn to be happy in our present, such as it is, it is highly unlikely that we will be happy in our future, such as it will be.

For the secret seeds of happiness are found within ourselves.

If all the stuff we have, all the money we earn has not made us happy, it is unlikely that having more of the above will make us happy. If our garden, as it is now, is not a deep joy, the perfect garden will not be a deep joy either. Our restlessness will persist. If the success we have found in our work, such as it is, has not made us happy, odds are, more success will not make us happy either. For apparently success does not contain it itself the seeds of happiness, and we have not yet found a way for our work itself to make us happy.

That is one summary of the Book of Ecclesiastes: Rejoice in your work, in your spouse, in your everyday life, for life is short

But the dead know nothing;

they have no further reward,

and even their name is forgotten.

Their love, their hate

and their jealousy have long since vanished;

never again will they have a part

in anything that happens under the sun.

So go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

* *

However, this earth was never designed to entirely satisfy us. God withholds just enough of bliss so that our appetite for our true home, in him, remains.

“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

* * *

How do we find joy and happiness in our daily life in this world which is our temporary home?

Cultivating a habit of gratitude, thanking God for the goodness of the day changes the flow of my inner life to gratitude. Recording three good things helps. Or using a 10 minute repeating timer on my phone, and thanking God for something glorious when it buzzes: the ever-changing panorama of the skies, the people who love me, the house and garden I live in, the books and art which have enriched my life; the places I have travelled to, the beautiful things I have seen.

I love this George Herbert’s poem “Gratefulnesse”

Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,

Give one thing more, a gratefull heart

Without that grateful heart, we will not fully appreciate what we already have, or what is yet to come.

* * *

Tweetables

Perhaps the most important talent we can cultivate is to be happy in the present moment. From @AnitaMathias1

Without that grateful heart, we will not fully appreciate what we already have, or what is yet to come. From @anitamathias1

For if we do not learn to be happy in our present, we may not be happy in our future we dream of, for happiness lies within us. From @anitamathias1

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” ― Elie Wiesel

This is what I love about writing. Writers are so greedy for life, they live it three times: the first time in the flesh, the second on paper, and the third when they read what they wrote.

Writing is not only a greedy practice but a generous one. Beyond the third life of words, there ripples a wave of life as other readers take part in your original in-the-flesh moment. The writer’s magnanimity allows for this reliving.

You can’t be indifferent and be a writer. By living (and reliving) this life of words, the writer takes a stand against indifference. Each scribble is claiming, “This matters, and that matters, too.” It matters so much that I’m going to live it over and over again. It matters so much, I hope you live it with me.

***

I woke up on a morning recently when it was still the deep gray of pre-dawn. A nameless bird sang a tuneless melody of five tones: first three the same, followed by two that were both different, ending on the highest note. And then the bird would repeat it, over and over.

I lay there listening, not trying to understand. What’s to understand, except that this is a life and a song? This is not work, it is sabbath. The secret of life is in those sabbath moments of not having to be useful or successful or right or ever planning how not to be thirsty or afraid. It is in being fully alive – and not indifferent – to what is there before me.

I believe the poet e. e. cummings was on to something when he wrote poem number 53 that opens, “may my heart always be open to little / birds who are the secrets of living.”

***

In my non-sabbath time, when I am in full justification mode, having a reason for all my actions, I am what they call a “knowledge worker.” Perhaps that term is passé by now – I hope so. It basically means I get paid to know stuff, to understand stuff, to analyze stuff, and to somehow make decisions based on that stuff. Basically, I get paid to be right.

In the fresh wisdom of cummings – “…for whenever men are right, they are not young” – I get paid to be old.

And in this rightness – this oldness – there is a kind of indifference. We call it objectivity, but it’s a slippery slope to indifference.

By way of clarification, I do not mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with work, with hard work that makes us tired and long for rest, that aches our fingers, that makes us sweat (in mind and body). Such work is redemptive. Such work cracks us open to the secret of life, the meaning behind the job description.

And such work is rare, especially when we are old, or feeling old. It is nearly impossible when everything depends on our being right.

But if I were young (in my spirit, in my mind, my heart), perhaps I’d get paid to be wrong, to fail spectacularly – to make outlandish statements and extreme promises, to go to the edge of a concept and peer over it into unknowable possibility, to a place beyond simple declarations of right and wrong, to sing like a bird on a limb.

Perhaps I would be compensated for not being indifferent.

For me, this would serve as the perfect job description (a la cummings):

“Stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple.”

***

This noisy bird outside my window matters to me. I want you to hear those five tones. I want you to feel the soft heaviness of the deep gray of pre-dawn beneath flannel sheets.

And I want you to care about it. I want you to be “in on” the secret of life, and to love it.

If I can do that as a writer – care enough to prompt a caring in you – I have lived, and lived again.

***

Kelly Belmonte

Kelly Belmonte is a poet, blogger, and management consultant with expertise in non-profit organizational development and youth mentoring. She currently serves on the board of directors for Exeter Fine Crafts in Exeter, New Hampshire. Her first published book of poetry, Three Ways of Searching, is available through Finishing Line Press

Image Credit: BBC