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The Supreme Court today is hearing a case about land. Seven property owners in Connnecticut are challenging the city's "public use" buyout of their land. The city intends to turn around and sell to private developers to revitalize the community.
I heard from one of the landowners. His house was a wedding gift from his grandmother. He tends the same garden his great-grandparents did. The land has been in his family for six or seven generations. It's become part of them -- part of their story. I felt the weight of that. After all, I have no similar circumstance and it must be really good to know your place, to live in a bigger story even in the sense of your own family.
The city is in trouble. 80% of their commercial properties sit idle. 20% of their homes are empty. Industries have moved out, jobs have dried up, mom-and-pop businesses have gone the way of all flesh. They're desperate. This ninety acres will be used for a drug research center, a hotel/conference center, shops, condominiums. I picture Maple Grove in the last 5 years... And this smacks to me of hope. That good days are on the way again, that the town won't just fade away.
So today the Supreme Court gets to decide between the past and the future. The story makes me think about the ways I pick one or the other to be my focus, my home. I stress when I need to think about making sure my grades are up for financial aid and grad school, figuring out what to "do with my life". I get beat over the head by the ways things that have happened to me have shaped the way I respond to now. The ways I hurt people without knowing it and rifling through my memory trying to figure out why.
It is so hard to live in the now. Hard to stay present. Hard for me -- hard for everyone, I think. It's a battle. But the past is shrunken, a tunnel I can't stand up in. The future is smoke, always shifting and off-balance. Only now do I have a place to stand and freedom to move or be still. Only now can I remember God's presence and sit in Him, walk in Him, breathe Him, live in Him, let Him live in me. I need that for today if I'm going to experience it and not just remember it. I want to put on the Holy Spirit's presence like a warm sweater and luxuriate in it all day.
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. (Mt. 6:34a, Msg)" God, what are you doing in me now? How about around me? In chapel, in class, in between -- help me to look for it, to live in it, to move toward it. Remind me moment to moment that the story I live in is not about land, but a Kingdom.
I heard from one of the landowners. His house was a wedding gift from his grandmother. He tends the same garden his great-grandparents did. The land has been in his family for six or seven generations. It's become part of them -- part of their story. I felt the weight of that. After all, I have no similar circumstance and it must be really good to know your place, to live in a bigger story even in the sense of your own family.
The city is in trouble. 80% of their commercial properties sit idle. 20% of their homes are empty. Industries have moved out, jobs have dried up, mom-and-pop businesses have gone the way of all flesh. They're desperate. This ninety acres will be used for a drug research center, a hotel/conference center, shops, condominiums. I picture Maple Grove in the last 5 years... And this smacks to me of hope. That good days are on the way again, that the town won't just fade away.
So today the Supreme Court gets to decide between the past and the future. The story makes me think about the ways I pick one or the other to be my focus, my home. I stress when I need to think about making sure my grades are up for financial aid and grad school, figuring out what to "do with my life". I get beat over the head by the ways things that have happened to me have shaped the way I respond to now. The ways I hurt people without knowing it and rifling through my memory trying to figure out why.
It is so hard to live in the now. Hard to stay present. Hard for me -- hard for everyone, I think. It's a battle. But the past is shrunken, a tunnel I can't stand up in. The future is smoke, always shifting and off-balance. Only now do I have a place to stand and freedom to move or be still. Only now can I remember God's presence and sit in Him, walk in Him, breathe Him, live in Him, let Him live in me. I need that for today if I'm going to experience it and not just remember it. I want to put on the Holy Spirit's presence like a warm sweater and luxuriate in it all day.
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. (Mt. 6:34a, Msg)" God, what are you doing in me now? How about around me? In chapel, in class, in between -- help me to look for it, to live in it, to move toward it. Remind me moment to moment that the story I live in is not about land, but a Kingdom.
posted by jeffmacsimus @ 8:41 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:05 AM,
Anonymous said…
Wow - you wax poetic! "Only now" - boy do I need to remember that today! (Everyday!!) I am trying to live the next 5 months...5 years in the current 5 seconds! But God cannot be with me every step of the way if I am racing along in my mind and not walking the path with him. I so want "to experience [God] and not just remember [God]." I desire to spend my day in dialog and comfortable silence with with my Savior, my friend. How can everything I do (especially planning my summer school schedule!)be an act of worship? What touchstones can remind me, bring me back, re-center and re-focus my intention? Thank you for wondering with me, jeffo!
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