Here it is. The gift of another moment, another hour, another day. It’s ours to have. Full of mystery and possibilities, we can share it or keep it to ourselves. We can savor it, gobble it up, or throw it away. We can thank and acknowledge God or pretend God is absent and has nothing to do with it. We can open it or not. No matter what, the gift is right in front of us to do with as we choose.
There is so much happening that we often find ourselves disconnected from each other, from ourselves and from God. Henri Nouwen says that the crisis of our time is to say that 'most of us have an address but cannot be found there'. The gifts are left at the doorstep but nobody comes to claim them. They vanish, one after another, as if stolen by thieves in the night. Lost forever.
I often think about how poignant and tragic this refusal to open the gift can be. Robert Frost wrote a verse that speaks to the loss in his "Nothing Gold Can Stay" poem so well acted out in a scene from "The Outsiders" a Francis Ford Coppola classic in 1983.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Our wholesale failure to open that gift is obvious. We are so fragile, yet often live recklessly and plunge headlong into an abyss. This is evidenced by ever-increasing numbers of people succumbing to the opioid epidemic and shocking statistics from CDC telling us that suicide rates for ten to fourteen-year-old children tripled from 2007-2017 or the fact that police officers are at greater risk for suicide than any other profession. Hate crimes have hit a sixteen year high. And we have reached a societal and political crescendo in which expediency and lies seem to be accepted without outrage as the new normal.
There is plenty that can be done to restore the world to sanity. We can put a stop to the idea that one group has dominion over another. We can put an end to bullying and scapegoating. We can look beneath the surface of objectionable behaviors and try to understand the trauma that might be causing it. We can focus much more of our energies and resources on prevention rather than figuratively and literally putting out fires. But before any measures will work, we must develop a new understanding of our most precious gift.
Here is what must be understood in order to stem the tide of anger, sadness, and loneliness which seems to be overtaking us.
We are not as fragile as we imagine. Any sense of hopelessness is an illusion. Richard Rohr calls this understanding a radical okayness.
A Power Greater than ourselves is in charge. We are never alone. God is always at our side.
In the end, only love remains. It endures when everything else fades away.
Grasp and celebrate the moment here and now as if it was the only one that will ever be. That is reality.
I am a gift.
All that I am is something that’s given,
and given freely.
Being doesn’t cost anything.
There's no price tag, no strings attached.
~ Thomas Merton
Merton says it well. The most important thing of all is to accept and embrace the incredible and undeniable fact that you are the gift itself. When that truth sinks in, nothing will happen which can separate you from the miracle of life, the endlessness of hope, and the Wonder of God.