Participate with your presence

Most people’s lives are a chain of small acts like eating, walking, working, laughing. What might happen, and how might our lives be different, if we carried out those small acts as if it was the only and last thing we might do in our life? What if every move we made and act we carried out was to find the sacred in all the mundane parts of life? What if we lived our life as though the sacred in all life mattered?

Being present to another person’s decline, illness, pain, and dying means that we persevere and hold still, rather than look away, deny, or dismiss another person’s suffering. Many will not try because they think that they can not make a difference. In their fear, they believe that the only difference worth making is to reverse disease or bring about a miracle that stops death. Love does not ask that we be God, but only that we be present.

To be present means that we need to pay attention, maintain patience, and let go of the security that we believe we know what is right for another person; we use the gifts of our intuition and heart-mind, quieting the chatter and fears of the brain.

Your presence does not have to be extraordinary…it just needs to come back when it has wandered and to stay the course. Your presence needs to continually feed the journey and respond to whatever arises, all the mundane and the beautiful.