Awareness

Anthony De Mello’s book “Awareness” includes some interesting, and helpful, reflections around the theme of the theme of the present moment and being aware. He points out the limits of words and how are attempts to ‘capture’ things so often just do not work. For example, “if I want you to get the feel of what the flow of a river is like and I bring it to you in a bucket. The moment I put it into a bucket it has stopped flowing. The moment you put things into a concept, they stop flowing; they become static, dead. … Concepts are always frozen. Reality flows. ….. it is so difficult to translate from one language to another, because each language cuts reality up differently. The English word “home” is impossible to translate into French or Spanish. “Casa” is not quite “home”; “home” has associations that are peculiar to the English language. Every language has untranslatable words and expressions, because we’re cutting reality up and adding something or subtracting something and usage keeps changing.” (p. 122). Some interesting – and challenging – ideas!

Mindfulness

“Emphasis on the present moment is also a key tool for those of us who can spend too much of our time living either in the past or in the future: worrying, replaying or even over-celebrating what has happened, or planning what is about to happen, while never fully appreciating what is right here in front of us.” So says Tim Stead in his book “Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality: Making Space for God”, which I have recently completed reading. Stead’s indicating the value of mindfulness is a timely reminder of the value of making space. As Stead also says: “Mindfulness itself does not fix things but seeks to open up a space where things might (if appropriate) be fixed. In fact, it teaches us more about not fixing things and about learning that it is not our place to try to save ourselves. But it does teach us the skill of opening things up – bringing concerns to the surface – so that, in God’s time and in God’s way, they might be healed or restored.”