Living in the present moment is waking up to reality and validating its importance. Often, especially if we're having a hard time, we might try to avoid the NOW by continually distracting ourselves. But, if we're continually distracting ourselves, we're not totally "alive" and present to the people around us, or Nature itself. We're not allowing ourselves to sink deeply into what's happening - and so we can miss out on the depth of life. We can flee thinking about the situation in front of us because it seems so unimportant, or even unremittingly tragic. But if we really pay attention, we are aware of more of the totality of experience - how others are affecting us, how we are affecting them, and what is "going on" inside of us. Because, if God is present, at work in every moment - and He is - we can find Him there if we wake up, if we become aware, if we stay in the Now, this present moment.
Jesuit priest Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751, author of the spiritual classic "Abandonment to Divine Providence," was a teacher and a retreat master. He had to endure the pain of slowly losing his vision. Yet, he embraced this suffering as an experience that he needed to both accept and mine for meaning. He spoke often of "the sacrament of the present moment." He said, "Embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness....If we have abandoned ourselves to God, there is only one rule for us: the duty of the present moment...There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured, of some consolation to be enjoyed, or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action.”
Eckart Tolle, a contemporary spiritual writer, adds to this with his wisdom: "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment."
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M. concurs: "Of all the things I have learned and taught over the years, I can think of nothing that could be of more help to you than living in the now. It is truly time-tested wisdom." He adds,
"So many leaders in so many traditions have taught the same thing: Hindu masters, Zen and Tibetan Buddhists, Sufi poets, Jewish rabbis, and Christian mystics to name a few. In the Christian tradition, we have heard it from Augustine, the Franciscan Francisco de Osuna, the Carmelite Brother Lawrence, and more recently, Paul Tillich and Alan Watts. Contemporary teachers Thich Nhat Hanh and Ekhart Tolle have done much to help us understand the importance of living in the now."
As relatives of children with special needs know very well, (I do!) it takes a special "vision," a way of being present, to welcome and nourish a special needs child. If we look at the situation as a terrible tragedy, our vision is neither clear nor complete. If we can look at such children with a welcoming heart, and see them as objectively as possible with all their unique disabilities but also all their unique gifts, we can embrace these children as a Gift to our lives. We know God is present in this situation, and so we have hope. We can make the most of each moment with this child.
Tim Kennedy was influenced by the anecdotes he heard from his mother about her sister Rosemary, who had significant intellectual disabilities. Her family speculated that this was the result of oxygen deprivation when she was born. The family kept her disabilities a secret from everyone (including her) and tried to encourage her to "keep up" with everyone. She could not keep up in school with her brothers and sisters, and often had fits of rage because she did not understand what was happening to her.
Her father, without consulting anyone, took her for a new (and since discredited) brain surgery, a lobotomy. Unfortunately, the result was a disaster: she lost most of her ability to speak, and much of her mobility, and was institutionalized. Her father, devastated, could not bring himself to visit her afterwards, and her siblings did not discover until years later where their sister was. Yet her siblings, who eventually reconnected with her, still considered her to be an important member of the family. Tim says, "At some level, they must have realized that in their sister Rosemary, they had received something far greater than they had ever been asked to give: a person whose love they didn’t have to earn. With Rosemary, they needed only to give love in order to receive it back." Tim Shriver believes that the tragedies in Rosemary's life galvanized all of her siblings to give their lives in loving service to others.
Rosemary passed away from natural causes on January 7, 2005, aged 86, at a Wisconsin hospital, with her sisters Jean, Eunice, and Patricia, and brother Ted, by her side.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Tim's mother, saw clearly the prejudices that people with special needs faced, especially through her experiences with her family and her sister. An athlete in school, Eunice also clearly saw the potential athletics had for bringing people from different backgrounds together in a common experience. And so she became a pioneer in the worldwide struggle for rights and acceptance for people with intellectual disabilities, and founded the Special Olympics.
Tim has inherited his mother's clarity of vision. He says,
"My work is largely with and in support of people who have significant vulnerabilities because of intellectual disability. In many cultures these people are excluded and oppressed, though often unconsciously, even more so than other marginalized groups. . . . They are thought to be hopeless. Mostly they are ignored and forgotten.
"For 20 years I have been mentored by these same people. Some might not be the best-spoken, the most articulate writers, the most celebrated thinkers, the fastest runners. And yet, despite all of that, I have met person after person who emanates a kind of radiant light. After a while, even the densest of us may have our eyes opened to that something which transcends all superficial distractions of disability: the unimaginable beauty of every person. That beauty is ours for the seeing if only we have the eyes to see, if only we pay attention.
"I try to maintain those eyes as I am engaged in this work. At times I will pull myself out of whatever I’m doing and try to remember that I’m united with all that is. I give myself license to step away and reconnect. I fail mostly, but once in a while I succeed, and when I do, I feel like I am touching a “sweet spot” of wonder and peace. It enables me to be present to people in a way that I can communicate to them that I love them unconditionally. There are no conditions to our unity, to our oneness."
If we truly believe that God is at work in every person we meet, every experience of our lives, the most important thing we can do for ourselves is to mindfully abandon ourselves to His Divine Providence. What a weight off of our shoulders this can be! We can live in the "Now" of our great joys, our greatest tragedies, and be at inner peace, knowing that God is within us and beside us, all the way. We can see in everyone, as Tim Kennedy sees in his special needs friends, "a kind of radiant light....the unimaginable beauty of every person." After all, isn't that how God sees each of us? Following the examples of Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade, of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Timothy Perry Shriver, we can learn to live without fear in the Now, knowing that we all belong to God and are His treasures.
(a photo of Eunice Shriver at the Special Olympics.)