The View From ……. THERE?

Since my last posted “View,” we have had a geographic change. Over the first four days of this new year, we traveled almost 1400 miles westward over mountains and plains and have now arrived at our very own “little house on the prairie” Honestly, along the way, we felt a real kinship with our pioneer ancestors who made the same journey generations ago in Quaker bonnets and covered wagons. Our sturdy Conestoga was of the U-haul variety, and it only took us 3 ½ days instead of 3 ½ months, but we felt like wagon-train settlers just the same!

The title of my column/blog has always been, “The View From Here.” Several of my Virginia friends have teased that I will now have to change it to “The View From There!” But another good friend of mine taught me a saying over the years that certainly applies now: “Wherever you are… be there!” That seems kinda obvious, right? But obvious or not, many people live in the past, dwelling in the regretful land of coulda- shoulda-woulda, while others are constantly worried about what’s coming up next. Many of us flip-flop between the two, never landing on “today.” Often I find I am not really enjoying the experience of the “right now” because I am not “being where I am? Does that make sense? Have you ever heard a coach being interviewed after a big win? Usually the coach fails to celebrate the team’s great victory even for a moment. Instead he immediately begins to talk about his next game; all the future problems and obstacles to be overcome, and all the past mistakes they made during the last game. It’s hard to live in the present – to be where you are!

God proclaimed His name to Moses as “I AM”. Not “I was” or “I will be,” although both those things are true…. as we perceive time anyway. God is outside of time, He lives as the constant “I Am” - the forever present. He is always “being where He is” and He is omnipresent! (Ever-and-everywhere-present) So what’s the application? Well, it would be easy for me to try to hang on to the past right now and perhaps just as tempting to fret about the future. God calls us to neither. He asks us to give Him the past and trust him for the future. He wants us to just be where we are, and where we are is …. in Him. So whether from my new office overlooking the grasslands of central Kansas or from wherever my “View” originates, it will always be from “here.” My goal for now is to work on simply “being where I am”…. want to join me in that?

PS. This will be the last “View” posted on the Hanover Friends website. “Being where you are” means embracing the present and you can’t wholeheartedly do that until you let go of the past. So to that end, no more “View” at friendlychurch.org. You can however, keep following my musings at www.davidacrisp.blogspot.com. If you’d like to continue receiving the “view” via e-mail, send me an e-mail at davidndes@gmail.com with that request and…. eventually…. I’ll make it happen. Blessings!