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Amy Sander Montanez is a writer, teacher, therapist, retreat leader, and spiritual director who attends Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. You can access an archive with her award-winning reflections on the diocesan Web site at www.edusc.org/News and learn more about Amy at her Web site, www.amysandermontanez.com.

In the Moment—One Pilgrim's Attempt to Be Present

By Amy Sander Montanez, D. Min.

The Great Equalizers

A client e-mailed me late last night to tell me he had recently lost his job. Yikes. This must be the third or fourth person recently. It’s so frightening and disorienting to get this sort of news. Where will I go? How will I pay the bills? What about the kids' college tuition? How do I start over? Am I too old to reinvent myself and my vocation? It seems to be numbing and nauseating all at the same time.

I have often thought that a diagnosis of cancer was the great equalizer. Knowing no socioeconomic class, race, or gender differences, cancer strikes where it will, with no apparent rhyme or reason. This economic scare seems to be like that. No one is safe. No job is safe. No amount of clout, class, culture, or connectedness seems to work. When budgets need to be cut, when businesses need to survive, what must be done is done, and real people are left in the aftermath of this storm. The sudden death of a loved one evokes a similar response. How could this happen? Why me? Natural disasters, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and tsunamis also pull the rug out from under us and remind us that we are not in control.

I am listening to the thoughts of people who are going through this kind of crisis. Things like, “I wish we hadn’t bought that new house. We really didn’t need the space. We just wanted to live there.” Or, “We told Suzie she could go to any college she wanted. We figured we’d work it out later.” Or, “I’ve always taken good care of my health. How could this happen to me?” “I wish I had a fire box in the house. We lost all the important documents.” Or the most painful to my ears, “I’d give anything to have him/her back.”

It is easy for me to delude myself in all sorts of ways. Perhaps it is necessary. If I walked around all day long worrying about the stability of my job or my health or my loved ones I probably wouldn’t be able to function. And so I try to live in the moment and be grateful for what I do have. Consider the lilies, we are told, and know that God is in control. It is also important to move forward and keep my eyes on those things that I feel the Holy One calling me to do and to accomplish. And, I must somehow live with the knowledge and hold the reality that nothing is safe, no one is immune. I can make wise and prudent choices along the way that might create a safety net of sorts. But in the end, I must also remember that this moment is all I have. I must live as much as is possible in the fullness of that reality. What really matters? What is my life about? If a “Great Equalizer” hit me, would I know where the foundation is beneath me? How many regrets would I have?

A new and recent PBS series on the National Parks of America reminds people over and over again that being out in the wild, in the rawness and majesty of nature, can help remind one of his or her place in the order of creation. In the vastness of a great gorge, in the shadow of a looming mountain, in the wild spray of a water fall we are reminded that we are a part of the whole of creation, not separate. And the laws of creation, the life-death-life cycle, apply to us as well. It is somehow calming to sit in that reality where we can no longer hold on to our delusions of control and mastery. In the wild, the premise goes, we know who we are and whose we are. We experience connectedness to all of creation. I have experienced that feeling and that perspective. It is true.

But it seems to me that everyday life is just as wild and as raw as that of nature. If we are paying attention, we can see in our own lives and the lives of those around us that there is little we actually control. What we can do is learn to live in a way that honors God’s reality, that promotes the kingdom of God. We can act in ways that bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. There are so many many traps to catch us that are really about maintaining our illusion of control. In the end, we are all equal. Each of us a child of God. All of us living on the same planet, connected by invisible threads. What affects me affects you, now more than ever as our economics, environments, religions, and politics are increasingly global.

I invite you to join me in the minute by minute journey to live in the moment. I invite you to join me in allowing our consciousness to awaken and evolve, to see God’s reality as it really is and not as we would like it. In this moment, I invite you to remember with me that this moment is all we have, and that it is enough. I invite you to join me in knowing that we are so intricately connected that our actions effect each other and every living creature on the planet. With or without the consequences of a “Great Equalizer,” I invite you to remember with me that God’s reality may be quite different from our illusion of reality.

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