Here we are; part way between Christmas and New Year’s. It feels like an ‘in-between’ kind of place for me.

In one hand, I hold the fullness of a spiritually endowed Christmas celebration with seven services over the past week; in the other, the passing of New Year’s with little spiritual acknowledgement.

In one hand, I hold the reality of what has been, while in the other the uncertainty of what will be.

In one hand, I hold joys and sorrows that I know, regrets I can recall, as well as moments of delight, while in the other hand I carry questions around what will be.

In one hand, I know who I am, my responsibilities, my work, my circumstances, while in the other… who am I becoming? What will my work life entail? What about those I care about?

I feel myself in that in-between time, standing in a gap between reality and promise, between what is and what might become. I suppose that each moment of each day is such a gap, but caught between two large celebrations I find I’m more aware of it and the inherent tension.

Learning to live in the present moment is the growing awareness and acceptance of being here, right now, in-between reality and promise and finding meaning in that place. Last week in my readings I was given from Shalem, a quote from the poet Rilke that describes this ‘in-between’ life:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

And try to love the questions themselves,

Like locked rooms….

Do not now seek the answers,

which cannot be given you

because you would not be able to live them.

Live the questions now.

I hope as I move into 2017 I will live more and more in the present moment, firmly holding my place within the tension gap between reality and promise, being able to ‘live the questions,’ not running from them, or reacting to them, but trusting more deeply in the One who holds me. Radical Trust. Powerful Peacemaking.

And you? What is your current experience, your reality? What are your questions, and what is your relationship with those questions? What are your longings for 2017? My prayer is that all of us, can have our core strengthened so we can stand, holding the gap between reality and promise, firmly rooted in God’s love, trusting more deeply, and living the questions.

“Travel Lightly – Dwell Deeply”.

Be loved

Anne

Contemplative Fire Community Leader Canada