Living in the present requires practice.

Living in the present is at once the easiest and the hardest thing you’ll do. And the key is found in those two short words (six letters) “at once.”

That, in fact, is where we live, even if we often (most of the time, an interesting expression) do not realize it. “At once” describes a moment and implies a union of disparate elements. Another term we use is “the present”—or “now.”

Living there, in the now, is easy because it’s where we live—without any required effort. Realizing that is the hard part. “Realizing” has to do with what’s real. To realize something is, in a sense, to make it real. But in reality (another interesting term), realizing means becoming aware of something real.

It can also carry the meaning of attainment. We might say, “She realized her potential when she won the race.” She attained what had been unrealized. Then it became real. It happened.
How then do we realize (make real) the reality that we live at once, in the present? This leads to another question, Why should we care?

Before we answer these, let’s look back at the easy and hard parts of living in the present.

Easy: We exist, we breathe. Those are gifts from our Creator. As gifts, they signify grace. We are alive through no effort of our own. And we breathe usually without thinking about it (asthmatics and others, such as my father in the last several years of his life, dependent on a machine that fed him oxygen, may disagree). We live through each moment by God’s grace.

Hard: Receiving that gift of life with gratitude and awareness is not automatic. That takes some effort, what I call practice. Such awareness of the gift of life and breath is more intense (or present) when that gift seems threatened. When our breathing is labored or when our life feels fragile, we may stop and think (or feel): Yes, thank you, God, for life.

The trick (it’s not a trick but straightforward) is how to be aware and grateful without requiring extenuating circumstances, such as illness or danger. There is no magic formula. It requires practice.

Better, practices. And there are many. Let me mention a few:

1. Breathing. While this generally occurs routinely, try doing it slowly, rhythmically. For example, sit still and inhale through your nose, letting your diaphragm expand, then exhale through your mouth, letting your diaphragm deflate. This has a calming effect and helps your body relax, but it also helps you be more aware of your breathing, that gift from God, and thus helps you live in the present, and thus in reality.

2. Thanksgiving. A frequent theme in Scripture and the most common form of prayer in the Bible is giving thanks. Take time (another interesting expression) to verbalize your thanks to God for life. Add other gifts as well. David Stendl-Rast’s book Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer is a good guide here. You can offer thanks in words, aloud or silent, in song, in gesture or simply. You can combine it with your breathing, thanking God for the miraculous way your body functions, all the many parts that work together in such a way that you are alive. Thanking God for this moment may feel easy when relaxing, say, beside a mountain stream or watching a beautiful sunset. But when in discomfort or pain or in a tense moment when several sources demand your attention, it can feel difficult, to say the least.

3. Slowing down. Such practices require time, which our culture tends to view as a rare commodity. We rush from one activity to another, usually thinking about two or three other activities we’d like to be doing (or rather, getting done). We live in a world of quantification, where product is valued over process, quantity over quality. To slow down and give our attention to breathing, to giving thanks or to a dozen daily tasks—cooking, washing dishes, brushing our teeth, getting dressed, you name it—is a countercultural exercise. And while Mennonites may take pride in being countercultural, speed is engrained in our psyches. We like to get things done. We are rewarded—paid money, given praise, feel good, that we have a purpose—when we accomplish things. In this way, Mennonites tend to be good Americans—practical, utilitarian.

Slowing down, then, is a requirement for living in the present but also difficult to do. It takes practice, doing it over and over until it becomes almost natural.

My physical therapist has told me about muscle memory. If you do a certain activity 500 times, the muscles used for that activity respond almost automatically when you begin it.
My daughter has run hurdles in high school and college. She had to learn the technique of going over each hurdle as low and as quickly as she could. She got the basic technique down, but to improve on her time she had to keep refining her technique. And she had to keep practicing so that her hurdling became automatic. The more she had to think about it, the worse she performed.

Living in the present, like any spiritual discipline, requires practice. It involves trying and failing, then trying again. It also requires motivation, believing it is worth doing.

Now back to that why question. I could argue that such a practice will make you happier and more serene, and I believe it will. But such a tack reflects American consumerism more than it reflects biblical obedience. And you don’t live in the present by thinking how it will help you in the future. Ends-means thinking is antithetical to living in the moment.

I won’t argue that such a practice will get you saved or a reward in heaven. But I will invite you to look to Jesus, who lived this practice, aware that he lived and served in the presence of God the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. And though he healed many and taught the crowds and his disciples many truths, his was no assembly-line operation. He didn’t even begin his “ministry” until he was around 30 (What kind of productivity is that?), and he often retreated to a deserted place to pray. Finally, in a most un-utilitarian fashion, he gave himself up to his enemies to be killed.

Jesus lived in the reality of God’s presence. He participated in the Trinitarian love that is eternal (ever present). As creatures made in God’s image, we, too, are made to live in that eternal love. We are directed to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength—and love our neighbors—not for some future reward but because that is who we are created to be.

It’s the ultimate realism. Living “at once” is easy and hard. It is following Jesus each moment and receiving forgiveness—over and over—as we fail.

Gordon Houser is associate editor of The Mennonite.