The Space Between
A light snow swirled as the two of us left the house.
Winston the Westie and I, out for the afternoon walk. A dog oriented around routine, Winston only protests a bit as we turn south.
I haven’t been walking with Winston much lately. Holley has been on walking duty since my foot surgery. After going back to a shoe instead from the cumbersome walking “boot,” I could take small walks once again.
The Chicago cold was assertive. My face and hands, even hands in gloves, sting in a way that is both familiar and unwelcome.
As many dog owners know, this is the point where you - though you KNOW you aren’t supposed to - transition from a walk to more of a drag. Winston wears a perpetual coat, so the cold is not his enemy. It is mine.
Which leads to a very interesting standoff, because Winston has a tendency towards paranoia. Every walk we take, he spends the first block looking behind him. I have no idea what he is looking for, but he switches between a full-on refusal to go forward and walking forward while looking behind him.
The latter leads to some serious comedic moments, when he runs headlong into our legs or feet because he simply isn’t paying attention.
Curious that - an attention to what is behind him leads to a head-on collision with the firm and unmoving present.
Then, there’s my desire. I have no idea why Winston is focused on what is behind, but I do know that the quicker we can end this walk and return to the warmth of home the better.
Winston is looking back, and I am looking forward.
There is a significant note in this little story about our spiritual journey. So many of us spend our time peering into the past…
…the relationships that used to be
…the places and spaces we used to inhabit
…the successes of the past that gave us such comfort, so much meaning
Our great desire to go back to better times - the times before whatever happened happened - keeps us walking forward and looking backward.
Then again, like me, some of us are looking forward with anticipation. We are almost hurrying to the next thing: the next opportunity, the next event, and the next stage.
Sometimes the focus on the future is a direct result of what is over our shoulder, what lingers in the past. We hunger for the future because the failures of the past carry so much guilt and shame. Our desire for what is “not yet” is motivated because of our boredom or disappointment with what we’ve already seen in our multiple paths of life.
But there is a place between both past and future; a place where we are most alive and where the real gifts lie.
Between a man pulling the leash forward and a dog straining for whatever is behind, there is the present.
I take the present for granted, though the limitations of my surgery have reframed that assumption a bit. When you can’t walk for a while, walking is a gift.
Winston is far more concerned with what might be happening behind us to know that if he would simply commit to the walk, we’d be back home sooner rather than later.
Both of us need a radical reorientation to the present.
Of course, in our spiritual journey sometimes the present is just too much to bear. The present is the meeting of a future we have no clue about and a past we’d often rather forget.
In the space right in front of us, our unique story meets the unique circumstances of a moment and it is often difficult to tell what will happen.
What is clear to me is that avoiding the present is to give up on the energy that transforms us.
What is also clear is that God’s favorite meeting place for the human adventure is right here, right now.
To live anywhere else is to live in what James K.A. Smith calls “nowhen” - a place where we attempt to live as if the past doesn’t matter and the future is what we hope comes crashing into the present moment (sooner rather than later).
in this “nowhen” place, we are ships without a compass. We are people without a history or a hope that transforms the way we tread the ground beneath our feet. We have no way of reorienting ourselves when things go sideways in our marriage, relationships, work, or inner life.
God called the people of Israel through desert sands and growling bellies by saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt…” (Ex. 20:1) The identity of a people in a windswept, wild place begins with how they arrived at the present moment, but it is also a promise that the future is filled with exoduses yet to occur.
The spiritual journey is meeting Spirit in this moment right in front of us - filled with restlessness and regret as well as celebration and successes. We cannot be changed anywhere else. Jesus met people in their present because that was where the story began - at least the brave new chapter Jesus was writing.
Today, consider describing your present moment in clear terms:
What is happening? What isn’t happening?
Where are you longing for the “good ol’ days” (which weren’t “good ol’” after all, if we’re being honest)?
How are you attempting to fast-forward the tape and skip what is right here, right now?
Consider what an honest chat with the Divine might look like with the present as the topic of conversation.
Winston survived moving forward. I survived the Chicago cold to fight another day. But are we different now?
We’ll see what the future holds.
Photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash