Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Moment to Moment by Judy Croome


Can you live in the moment?

I have recently been blessed and honored to have two guest bloggers, Peter, from There's a Part of me, and Paula, from Everyday Radiance, on my blog. They shared two well written and thought provoking posts True Colors and True Colors; a Polarity respectively.  I am looking forward to having more guest bloggers sharing their feelings and perspective on some interesting topics as well.

My dear friend Judy recently published a book, Dancing in the Shadows of Love,  which I am enjoying reading at the moment. She offered her followers a chance to write a guest post for their blogs and with her being such a good writer, how could I refuse. I am thrilled that she wrote the below post and hope that you will all enjoy it as much as I have.


Moment to Moment by Judy Croome

In today’s busy world, how often do we attempt to juggle the different activities — our jobs, our families, our personal goals — in our lives? 

If your life is anything like mine, I’m constantly manipulating my time. I steal a moment here to tackle that load of dirty washing or a moment there to do some writing, all the while trying to keep a sense of balance and order in my life. 

Often I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of being fractured by all the demands placed on me.

“Stop!” I want to yell (and sometimes do!) “I’m only one person!”

Usually I crack when I’ve forgotten an essential component of living a harmonious life: our ordinary human lives are both exquisitely important and disappointingly insignificant. 

Understanding this fundamental paradox of human existence is the key to keeping our inner balance while meeting the persistent demands on our time.

To us, the incapacitated father, the job deadline or the rush to prepare the perfect religious celebration, are overwhelmingly important. However, in the time-line of the evolution of humankind, they are all less than pinpricks. 

They may feel like the thrust of a sharp steel sword, cutting up our serenity and throwing us off balance. But, really, they are pinpricks in comparison to events that affect the universal human condition.

What is my beloved Dad’s brain-stem stroke, which has left him with limited functionality, compared to the wars that have ravaged our planet and our souls for millennia? What if he has to live this sad existence for another month, year or decade compared to the four-million-year life and death of a sun in a far-away galaxy?

“The sun is new every day,” said Heraclitus.

For what is today, cannot be tomorrow. With each moment that passes, everything is different. The change may be too small for us to notice—another word in my Dad’s already reduced vocabulary forgotten as another small synapse in his brain burns out—or it may be a tsunami of demands on our time and energy.  

When we forget that no condition in this life is permanent, we start to live an unbalanced life. We scurry here and hurry there, attempting to juggle all the different balls of our life at once. We plan ahead. We try to control what is essentially fluid. 

Life is not a series of separate balls to be kept in the air by a human juggler. Life is more like a river running from its source, high in the pure mountain air, sometimes calm, sometimes slow, often filled with hidden currents and rushing rapids that tend to knock us off-balance until, finally, the water sweeps back into the ocean from which all life originally emerged.

What if, when we feel exhausted, stressed, or hopeless, we stop juggling life and remember that the easiest way through a fast-flowing river is to step from stone to stone? What if we only concentrate on the moment that each stone reveals itself, showing us the safest way through the swirling, ever-changing waters? 
 
So it is with our busy lives: when we accept that the best way of dealing with the pinpricks of life is to remember that whatever happens will pass in the morning, we can give up trying to control what happens around us. We can just flow from moment to moment, letting harmony return to our lives and joy to our souls.

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Judy Croome lives and writes in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was recently shortlisted in the African Writing Flash Fiction 2011 competition, and other short stories and poems have appeared in Itch-e Magazine and “Notes from Underground Anthology.”  Her independently published novel, “Dancing in the Shadows of Love,” is available from Amazon.com and other bookstores. Visit Judy on her blog www.judycroome.blogspot.com
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Free Image from ClipArt

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22 comments:

dancingbrook said...

Welcome to the salad Judy. The chef is a great one, even if she tosses in bits like me who aren't quite ripe. Actually she is INCREDIBLE. And your timing is good as some de-stressing advice is needed.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

DB, I agree about the chef! :)

Lana, thanks for giving me the opportunity to write for your fantastic blog!

Judy, South Africa

Tabouleh said...

Thank you both :) .... but thanks and gratitude should really go to you all my guest bloggers for writing such wonderful posts.

Hilary said...

Hi Lana and Judy .. it's those pinpricks of life that are so essential to our beings, while we inhabit this earthling world. Give your father as much serenity, care and companionship as you can .. realising his needs - just holding hands if necessary in peaceful solitude together - basking in his world.

Enjoy these times .. with many thoughts - Hilary

Elisabeth said...

Hi Lana and Judy

Thanks for reminding me to slow down. Your guest post here Judy reminded me of the words from one of AS Byatt's novels, Still Life:


" She remembered from what now seemed the astonishing free and spacious days of her education the phenomenon of the first day's work on a task. One had to peel one's mind from its run of preoccupations: coffee to buy, am I in love, the yellow dress needs mending, Tim is unhappy, what is wrong with Marcus, how shall I live my life? It took time before the task in hand seemed possible, and more before it came to life, and more still before it became imperative and obsessive.

There had to be a time before thought, a wool-gathering time when nothing happened, a time of yawning, of wandering eyes and feet, of reluctance to do what would finally become delightful and energetic. Threads of thought had to rise and be gathered and catch on other threads of old thought, from some unused memory store."

I relish the idea of a wool gathering time.

Thanks.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

@HILARY: I agree, we're so lucky to have this "still time" with my Dad, to just sit in silence and cherish the "being" of it all.

@ELISABETH: A time before thought...how beautiful. Truly an important gift that many of us (myself included!) forget to use as we rush around during our days.

Judy, South Africa

Linda Cassidy Lewis said...

Hello, Judy, and thank you, Lana, for inviting her here.

Perspective is everything, isn't it? It's so easy to get stuck on all those daily pinpoints and miss the true point of life. As I get older, I find myself more often pulling back, trying to see from the "God's eye" view. There's freedom in that.

Lovely post, Judy. Thank you for sharing.

dancingbrook said...

Elisabeth,

I liked your comment, especially the wool gathering, being a sheep boy in my younger days.

I like the idea of there being a process to help with the getting started; I'll see if I can use that before the next onerous task.

Such a colorful world.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

LINDA: You are *so* right when you say that there's freedom in stepping back from the mad rush and taking a more objective look at what's happening. And yet so often we just forget and get stuck. Glad you enjoyed the post! :)

DB: Such a colourful world indeed!

Judy, South Africa

Marilyn Brant said...

Judy, I have such a difficult time staying in the present moment... This has been something I've struggled with for decades. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this in your terrific post.

And, Lana, lovely to visit your blog! I read in your profile that you're a Pride & Prejudice fan -- that's my very favorite novel ;).

Tabouleh said...

Hi Marilyn... thank you for visiting this beautifully written post and my blog... I think we all have a difficulty living in the moment... I am glad Judy wrote this post... YESSSS I love Pride and Prejudice ... read it 5 times and saw the movie and series a few times... so romantic... Will check to see if you have a blog too.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

MARILYN: Staying in the present is much easier said than done! Some days it comes so naturally and others days it takes real effort to live in the moment.

LANA: Marilyn is an Austen fanatic - she wrote the delightful book According to Jane which has Jane Austen herself offering advice to the heroine!

Lisa said...

Beautiful and true, and a good advise and reminder too. Thank you Judy. And I love the picture.

Bish Denham said...

Nice Judy, and timely.

Isa said...

Lana, I haven't read this post yet, neither the last one, but I'll come back, promise. Life is going crazy right now. I just wanted to tell you there is something for you in my blog.

Kiss

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

@Oceangirl: I wrote it to remind myself - when life is hectic, it's too easy to forget to just go with the flow.

@Bish: Glad you found the post useful.

@Isa: Hope life settles down soon

Jan said...

What a beautiful post Judy. I must make some time to read your book! I am facinated by what you write about time and the meaning of our own lives in the grand scheme. Yes just the present moment and the next step in this moment.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

JAN: Glad you found the post interesting...but don't get me on my soapbox with my theories on time, I'll never stop talking! :)

shaz said...

Wonderful and thought provoking post Judy.
Recently and due to age-ing I constantly have to remind myself to stop and enjoy the present moment for it truly won't come back.
And then I get a reminder from YOU...Thank you.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

@SHAZ: Oh yes, you're right - the older one gets the less time there seems to be available to just sit and centre our Self. And that's probably when it's most necessary.

PJ Swanwick said...

I love your comment about life not being a bunch of separate balls to be juggled - although it usually feels that way! A river is a much more useful and productive way to look at it. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Judy Croome | @judy_croome said...

PJ: Glad you could pop over and visit. :)