The Present is a Gift, That's Why They Call it the Present!

Well folks it’s a little hard to believe but I, Andy Russell, am no longer really a stranger to this place called Dodoma.  To be sure, I don’t know everything about Dodoma, not even close.  But I know the compound where I live, my walk to work, the CK office, Rose’s (where I get lunch most days, as well as a good number of the other store fronts and spots around Dodoma.  This familiarity has brought something else along with it: routine.

The word “routine” strikes fear into the hearts of many people.  I am no exception.  The banal, the repetition of less than stimulating activities over and over again, it can make us fear that somehow we’re not living life to the fullest.  Just look at TV shows, commercials, movies, newsstands, YouTube videos: clearly we aren’t being spontaneous or adventurous or glamorous enough.  WHY AREN’T WE HAVING FUN ALL THE TIME???

For me, routine has especially settled in at work.  Emails are checked, spreadsheets are updated, CK students or their parents stop by with healthcare or tuition needs, distribution schedules are discussed, and the world gently turns.  To be sure, all of this work is important to the mission of the Carpenter’s Kids.  But sometimes, in the slower moments, it certainly doesn’t feel that way.  And during those moments it can be terribly easy to drift off into fantasy, a world that replaces spreadsheets with NFL stardom and meetings with red carpets (who day dreams about those things anyhow?  Not me that’s for sure...).

I know this desk well

At YASC mission training, we touched on the idea of “being present” several times throughout.  It was not the first time that I had heard the call to “be present,” but I did take it more seriously than times past (I think being at a monastery helped).  The Daily Offices, the Great Silence, eating breakfast, trading experiences with other YASCers: I was there.   I still had a little feeling of “great, us Christians and our vague, spiritual-sounding jargon.”  But “being present” did begin to mean something to me.

And boy does it mean something to me now.  If God is everywhere all the time, then I am finding it increasingly important to take that seriously.  To know that no matter the moment—a miraculous triumph, a crushing defeat, a day spent hunched over a desktop computer screen, whatever—God is present.  And that is a powerful thing.  God, our Creator, who lovingly sent His Son down to die for our sins in order to save us all, is there.  We just have to be there with Him.  Cut out the day dreams, the fantasy, the speculation about the future, and just be with God.

Being present is something that I lose touch of constantly, but it’s also something to which I have become determined to return.  Routines can seem like a real downer, but I’ve come to realize more and more that there is so much more to the everyday we experience.  Paul urges the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4 NRSV). Because He is right there with us.  Always.