God is in the present moment.

More than being a blog post this is a note to self. I suppose I could say that of all my posts.

These days, in my life, there is a place I feel the need to return to more consistently.

That place is the eternal love of God in the present moment.

God is here. God is in the moment. How else could God be not far from any of us and closer to us than the air we breathe?

The present moment is the house of God.

God is in the now. God is in the present moment. God is present to all suffering because God is paying attention to all things in the present moment.  I think Psalm 46:1 puts this brilliantly. God is “an ever-present help in time of need.”
The very name that God gives Godself is now-ness or  I AM.

Another name for God that Judaeo-Christianity is familiar with is “YHWH”
which is the Hebrew onomatopoeic sounds for breathing in and out. It is interesting to me that I can only breathe in an out in the present moment.
I can’t hold my breath for very long before my lungs force me to take another breath.

I can only experience God now. I can’t store him up for later. God is a flowing. God is a relationship of love flowing into me and out from me.

God is right here, right now.

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of charity. ” writes Simone Weil.

If this is true, the God, who is love, is paying attention to all of creation all the time.
I can’t think of a more beautiful moment than when I see a toddler at play who pauses and turns to look at their parent to see their approving smile as they gaze at their child with delight. The parent has been watching the child the whole time. It’s when the child turns to the parent and realises this ongoing flow of affection that he or she returns it with laughter and a loving gaze back at their parent. The child has a shorter attention span than the parent but the circuit of love is completed nonetheless by the participation of the child. It’s the universe in a single moment.

When I do not experience this divine gift of love and affection emanating from The Father, I am the one who has disconnected myself from the flow of love.  It is never the other way around. It is never the Father who has turned away for it is the nature of the Lover to always be turned towards The Beloved. For a Father to be a Father he has to have a child. He is defined by his relationship to another. God cannot be God without also being love.

When I find that I am outside the flow, as I often am, I only need to remember who I am and to whom I belong to re-enter the flow of love that is emanating towards me from The Father. It is a place I feel the need to return to more consistently because it is the place I truly come from. That place is the eternal love of God. The God who is forever in the present moment.