We create artificial fullness and try to hang on to that. But there's nothing to hold on to when we begin to taste the fullness of the now. God is either in this now or God isn't at all.
As we grow older, we tend to become control freaks. We need to control everybody and everything, moment by moment, to be happy. If the now has never been full or sufficient, we will always be grasping, even addictive or obsessive. If you're pushing yourself and others around, you have not yet found the secret of happiness.
None of us are completely present. So don't feel guilty. This is the ideal, the enlightened moments that come now and then. But we do know that when we are manipulating, changing, controlling, and fixing, we are not there yet. The calculating mind is the opposite of the contemplative mind. The first is thought by the system, the second by the Spirit.
We might consider this prayer to try to draw ourselves into a contemplative frame of mind:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Richard Rohr: Everything Belongs
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