De-Clutter the Moment

I have de-cluttered much in the last 3 months: my desk, my basement, my finances (not finished here). I even sat down one day and emptied out my wallet – with a self-challenge to make it 1/3 thinner. I’m happy to say that it now easily slips into my pocket and rests easier on my mind (I actually know what’s in it).

But there is one space that I have difficulty de-cluttering. It, in fact, is the most spacious of all the spaces I possess; yet the most crowded. That space? It is the present moment. Yes, I have trouble de-cluttering my ‘now’.

Like my desk, my ‘now’ is pasted with pastel post-it notes (guilt). Like my basement, my ‘now’ is piled up with unfinished projects (regrets). And like my finances, my ‘now’ is stacked with bills (unconfessed sin) and the I.O.Us that others owe me (resentments). Sometimes this junk completely crowds out the light and airy experience of ‘now’.

So OK, that’s next. I will de-clutter a present moment – this present moment.

So I pause… from tapping out these words… I push aside these distractions. And I see…no, I feel, the gift of ‘now’. Once you get inside the present moment, you realize how wide it is, how ‘always’ it is. And you wonder why you waste it.

And I realize that I’ve had this gift all day; waking in the bed, driving in the car, sitting in conversation. And this gift is mine – more surely mine than any material possession. It is my inheritance, my domain. Mine to do with as what I please. Why pack it with guilt, regret, and resentment when I can stretch out, breath and be grateful?

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