By Micah Greenstein, Special to The Daily Memphian
In a Temple Israel prayer class I taught years ago, an older gentleman raised his hand to speak.
“I think a major problem with worship services and prayer in general is teaching people what to pray for,” he said. “I look back over the years when I was much younger and I realize that I was usually too busy to stop and pray.
“But when I did, I prayed for all the wrong things,” he said. “I used to pray for success in business. I used to pray that my golf game would get better, like a kid praying for good grades.
“But now, I wake up and begin my day by giving thanks for all the beauty in the world and in my life, for the spouse and family who stayed by my side, for my children and even my parents who are long gone.
“I don’t know much Hebrew, Rabbi, but I say, ‘Baruch ata Adonai,’ thank you, God, for a new day, and after that, I pray that God will help me to stay positive with a heart full of love and joy because sadness and despair destroy everything that I believe God wants me and other people to be,” he said. “I try to tell myself each morning that it’s up to me to be the kind of partner God needs in this world.”
This man gave eloquent testimony to what we call spirituality.
Spirituality is a way of relating to time, a readiness to measure every fleeting moment against the backdrop of eternity, to believe every event in our lives is a moment with a potential message, something we can often determine by our own design.
Spirituality is the sudden awareness time never passes, however long or short our lives may be. It is we who pass through time. Spirituality is the capacity to realize we can capture eternity in any given moment if we are open and eager enough.
The truth is we have all witnessed such moments: the birth of a child, beautiful music, caring for a dog, cat, or horse, milestone events like a family wedding, even the funeral of a loved one.
At such moments, we recognize quickly the meaning of a timeless experience: the awareness that what we have encountered transcends every possible boundary of ordinary reality.
We and the event are one. We call it “being in the moment.”
Mindfulness means many things. It means opening our eyes wider even when they are closed.
Being in the moment is especially hard nowadays, and not just because of our phones and other distractions.
Most of us emphasize learning from the past or planning for the future. Unfortunately, this often leads to living in the past and agonizing about the future.
When we live too much in the past or constantly worry about the future, we tend to undervalue the present.
Sometimes we can even miss out on what’s happening right in front of us, including the fall season. Fleeting as autumn may be in Memphis, it is truly spectacular in spots around our great city. If we blink, we may miss it.
Psychological research confirms we remember less about something when we record it on our iPhones. When we externalize an experience, we let the phone do the job of remembering for us. Staying present in today’s digital age is countercultural.
On the series finale of one of my favorite television shows “The Office,” a hilarious character named Andy Bernard is played by Ed Helms. As he was leaving the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. to join the admissions staff at Cornell University, Andy, excited about his new job, was suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia.
He says, “I wish there was a way to know you are in the good ol‘ days before you actually leave them.”
What exactly are the good ol‘ days? When do they happen and why? Reflecting on that script line, Ed Helms suggested the good ol‘ days are good because when we look back, we really liked ourselves in those moments, even if there were high levels of foolishness. Case in point: college, one of the great incubators for foolishness!
However, as Ed Helms expresses regarding Andy Bernard reliving his college days, “Those youthful diversions are the real nectar of life … so why relegate them to the past when you can keep creating them in the moment?”
Appreciating who or what is in front of us right now, even focusing on this column, is hard to do without being fully present — even more so with the ones we love and with our own selves.
So see life with your own eyes and not through your phone’s camera. When the sun sets tonight, don’t miss it. When you drink hot coffee, don’t miss it.
Like that wise congregant shared in my prayer class, “I try to tell myself each morning that it’s up to me to be the kind of partner God needs in this world.”
Happy Sunday.