By Marianne Wood

I gain great pleasure by spending a morning focused on writing about one topic or another that has bounced around in my head, occupying many moments of my days. As I attempt to capture these bits, I improve them with research if necessary, and hone them until, as Owen Jones wrote in The Grammar of Ornament: I am “satisfied from the absence of any want.” He was talking about principles for architects and designers, but the truth holds for writers as well. Don’t you love it when one thing informs another? As I pivot from an interesting career spent chiefly in the arts to retirement, I’m finding more pop-up topics I enjoy through games, study, and interactions with others.

My days are now mostly mine to craft as I wish, writing, painting, and teaching a little–sharing what I enjoy via words, pictures, and lessons about line, shape, form, space, color, value, and texture in masterpieces and in life. I love continuing to learn, so I enjoy games like “Worldle,” which teaches me to recognize countries by their shape and tempts me to learn more about them. “Artle” tests my knowledge of artists and leads me to new ones. And “Connections” helps me make associations and learn about popular culture. “I Heart Hue” sucks me into a world of color. I’ve found it to be the most addictive. I spend time on it, the “Mini Crossword” and “Strands,” only if there are spare blocks of time in my day. But reading is my best teacher. Sorry Duo. I love learning lingo from you, but books still win the battle for bettering my brain.

So I turned to some good reading recommended by one friend and agreed to read another book in tandem with another. The books turned out to contain a common truth. But before I share my aha moment, you need to know that a wise mentor once told me, “truth is truth wherever you find it.” I filed this, Jane Pope, and found your saying profoundly helpful many times. Especially now.

When I discovered that Eckhart Tolle and Blaise Pascal landed on the concept of conscious living in the present, or “the power of now,” as Tolle calls it, I had to investigate further. These men, born centuries apart and espousing far different religious convictions, discovered the simple truth that we make the best use of our lives when we focus on what we are experiencing at any given time. Here’s the concept in each philosopher’s own words. First, from Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now:

“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.”

Unaffiliated with any particular religion, Tolle teaches methods of achieving a state of presence. My friend, Becky Hansen Jones, shared his work with me when I was struggling to find my feet after a tragic loss. Later in my healing process, as I started studying the work of Christian philosopher and mathematical genius, Blaise Pascal, I discovered a matching truth. Translated from French, Pascal addresses time by saying this:

“Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”

So here we are with seventeenth and twenty-first-century philosophers saying the same thing. A universal truth. Perhaps a transcendent one as well, as I ponder it often. An AI robot helped me understand that a transcendent truth is “often considered absolute, objective, and independent of opinion or belief.” To play on the word itself, it climbs over all limitations we might set due to our religious or moral or demented defenses. It can scale any wall of disbelief.

I’m sure you would like a proof text. I offer two because I need the plumb line of scripture to help me fully evaluate this revelation, too. Matthew 6:34 encourages us to focus on God’s will, seeking His kingdom above all else. And Psalm 118:24 celebrates the “day the Lord has made,” urging us to rejoice and be glad in it. There are more.

But what if tragedy strikes? What if people betray us? Or we fail to win a coveted position? A beloved therapy pet goes missing? I’ve experienced all and more, and perhaps you have, too. It is very tempting to sit in the dirt like Elijah under the broom tree and quit. Or find a place outside the city and build a shelter like Jonah. They had had enough and wanted life to end. But that’s not the proper way. We have to keep on keeping on.

Even as I wept along with you, and millions more, over the tragic losses due to the July 4^th flood, I let this truth guide me back to what God calls me to do this day and in this moment. It is to pray, work, play, and rest. Engage in my tasks of interceding, serving, writing, teaching, painting, reading, dancing, swimming, and sleeping, focusing on gratitude at the end of each day. Tolle promises that presence will become my dominant state if I continue to return to the practice of now. He’s echoing a universal truth, as did Pascal.

One day, as I was running errands in my car and meditating on this concept, it occurred to me that driving is a great metaphor. If I focus too long on what is far ahead of me or what is behind me, I will eventually crash into something. But when I tend my gauges a bit, especially my speed, and keep my eyes on the near distance–what’s right in front of me–I am safest. Quick looks behind and far ahead are necessary, but focusing on the cars to my left and right and directly in front keeps me in the correct lane.

And when we look back on life, what highlights dot our memories? Yes, the ones where we’re most in tune with the people and activities of a particular day, hour, or minute. When we graduate, marry, welcome children, and hit other milestones, we find ourselves most in the moment. So, there’s no room for pouting in the dirt. We must engage in life, letting the present be the gift it was meant to be.

Marianne Wood enjoys writing, painting, and teaching art