I love the quiet of a Sunday morning, especially when I’m the first one up, which happens almost every weekend since our family could never be described as ‘morning people’.
It was cold in the family room, and so I turned on our gas fireplace. Bewitched by the entrancing flames, I sat quietly, watching the gentle snow falling outside while I comforted myself in the warm air that came towards me.
It was one of those moments that was perfect.
As it has a tendency to do, my mind drifted in time, seeing in vision the people who first came to this land, imagining their struggles against the never-ending cold. Not for them was the convenience of gas and electric, nor insulation and walls.
They came by foot, by horseback, by wagon. They came with fortitude and strength, sometimes out of desire and other times out of desperation.
How cold and brutal their world looks to me.
Yet when I cast my mind into the future, I see a child looking back at me through a history course, marveling at how we managed to survive as a one-planet species, who had not yet developed star-drive technology, not conquered the diseases that are, for her, a thing of the distant past.
What would that child in the never-present tomorrow think of the chance to sit quietly, warming herself against the cold?
Assuming there is cold, on the planet on which she lives.
And I wonder if that person in the past, or the child in the future, found any different pathways to happiness than the ones we seek. Sitting there, warm and safe, I could have found happiness in the moment, had I trained myself to do so.
The person of the past would look at my life as blessed beyond measure, while the girl in the future could look at me as a primitive savage.
Yet for all of their visions, would they understand the simple truth that resounded to me strongly this morning?
That happiness, in its truest form, is a choice that we make every moment. Although I am blessed to have an incredible wife, two amazing children, and a wonderful if eternally hungry dog, I struggle finding happiness in moments of peace like the one I found myself in this morning.
This is not new, nor is it surprising to me, but there are times when I wish I could be fully immersed in the moment, and forget both the past and the future.
And just be here, now.
If you, like me, struggle with being present in your moments of peace, I encourage you to sit quietly, day after day, and try to listen to the deep quiet voice inside you that speaks from a place of fear and desire, from both your past and your future.
The longer you listen, the greater will become your skill at listening, and the deeper you’ll be able to go.
Because the answers you seek are deep inside of you, if only we will have ears to hear, and hearts willing to understand. Peace can be found in any moment, either by being fully present, or by quieting the voices that would draw your peace away.
By whichever path you choose, may you find your own way to peace.
And find joy therein.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings