This Is the Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

Right now.  This is it.  Wait no longer.  This is your moment, this is my moment, this is our moment.

What the heck am I talking about?  Well, on the one hand, right now is the moment for all of us to show up and “do” whatever it is we were called to this planet to do – to truly express our gifts and talents.  On the other hand, right now is the moment that is calling us to “be” fully present and aware of all that is going on around us – to immerse ourselves in this holy present moment.  These are not mutually exclusive.

Our Outer Calling

Our planet sure is undergoing massive change right now.  It’s as if we were leisurely peddling along on a bicycle and came to a downhill stretch where we picked up speed and we’re going faster and faster.  Life is whizzing by, stuff is coming at us in a furious pace, response time has shrunk, potholes and obstacles are coming at us left and right.

Technology seems to be changing on a daily basis.  The Earth is facing challenges with global warming, overpopulation, water shortages, uneven distribution of resources and power, and political and social unrest.  There is the appearance of more polarization among people and their beliefs – more vocal extremes arguing at one another over their differences – political, racial, religious, socioeconomic, and more.  Violence, both physical and verbal, permeates our media and our entertainment.

These could be the times that try our souls…or it could be the moment that our souls are being called to express at their highest levels – their Dharma, their purpose, their reason for being on the planet at this time.  The choice is up to each of us as to how we respond.

It’s interesting.  I’ve been in a lot of conversations recently regarding a greater sense of the call to be more visible on the planet so as to assist everyone in this vast moment of change.  In working with people as a part of the spiritual organization of which I am a minister (Centers for Spiritual Living), there has been an awareness that this is the moment that our teachings of oneness and unity are called to be more widely visible at both the global and local level.  There is a realization that we can evolve through the current planet challenges and move towards a positive future, and that our teachings of Science of Mind and Spirit can assist in that growth.  This is the moment that is calling us forward.

Interestingly, I also sense this in my own life.  Something about the current times seems to be saying that I can no longer “play it small”.  Whatever I am called to do in this lifetime (which I have long discovered relates to teaching–both verbally and in print), now is the moment to move forward, to claim my life purpose, to live large.   The challenges the planet faces needs everyone to show up and do and be “all that they can be”.  Everyone means me and it means you.

So what are you called to do?  What do you sense your life purpose to be?  How are you called to serve humanity by living fully that purpose?  Now is the moment to “just do it”.  Don’t wait on others to step up and live their purpose and solve all of the Earth’s problems, this is the moment calling you to make a difference in your corner of the world.

Our Inner Calling

What a gift it is to be alive.  Sometimes we get so busy doing – living in our heads, completing our “to do” lists, thinking about the past, contemplating the future – that we forget to just “be”.

Yesterday I had a beautiful experience.  I was cutting the grass and decided to take a short break.  I sat in the shade of our home’s breezeway drinking a glass of ice cold water.  A few feet away my beautiful chocolate lab, Harmony, was laying in the freshly cut grass and basking in the sunlight.  Harmony’s nose was lifted up in the air sniffing smells far beyond my sensory perception.  She was obviously enjoying the moment.  My heart began to overflow with a sense of love for her.  I wished somehow I could grab hold of this moment and bottle it for later consumption.

I realized that no photograph could ever capture the fullness of this moment.  Have you ever gotten back from a vacation and showed someone your photographs and felt compelled to tell them that the picture in no way fully captured what you experienced?  I know I have.

Each moment has such a full richness to it if we pay attention.  Not only is there the full visual sense of what is going on – vivid colors, full 360° perspective, true 3-D depth perspective – a visual texture which can currently never truly be captured in photographs, but there is also all of the other tastiness of the moment.  My holy instant with Harmony included: my body’s objective change as it shifted from physical exertion to a state of rest, the cool breeze blowing across my skin, the deliciousness of the ice cold water running down my throat, the smell of fresh cut grass, the crisp demarcation between the shade and the sunlight, the perception of the flow of life within Harmony, the relaxed sense of love that I know always connects the two of us…and so much more than words can never capture.  Every moment has that completeness.

This was a moment I had been waiting for, but there really wasn’t anything “special” about this moment.  The only thing that was special was that I shifted my perception into fully experiencing the moment.  Every moment can be such a moment if we allow it.

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the past.  I fantasize about popping back into routine moments when my grown children were small so that I could fully experience them at that age again.  I have my memories and my photographs, but neither bring the sumptuousness of detail that I long for.  I would love to have just 5 minutes sitting with my young children in a room watching them play and sensing that moment in the same detail and fullness that I sensed in my experience with Harmony yesterday.

The irony, of course, is that when we are young and our kids are young, we are so into “doing” – working our jobs, growing our careers, cooking, feeding, cleaning and all the other “busy-ness” that seems so important at the time – that we don’t take much time just to “be in the moment”.  Our children grow up so fast and all those special moments race by, fading into our memories.  I often want to grab young parents by the collar and demand they pay loving attention to these all too brief moments with their children.  I hope my children are reading and heeding this.

Of course, we can’t cling to any one moment.  Our experience of time continues to move forward.  Yet, that’s okay.  The march of time brings an endless stream of these special moments – the trick is to pay attention to them.  Right now, this is the moment we have been waiting for.  This is the moment to experience life fully – to be in this holy instant.

Doing and Being

So right now is the moment that you are called to both express your full creative talents in service to the planet – “to do” what you were called here to do – and to live fully present in each moment – “to be” here in each moment and experience its richness and beauty.  Can you both “do” and “be” in this present moment?

Some of you may say that we can either do or be but not both simultaneously.  Somehow we have gotten it in our minds that our focusing on tasks takes us out of the present moment.  This is the same mindset that says work and play are mutually exclusive.  It doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s been my experience that when I truly lean into living my life’s passion, leaning into the call to be a teacher such as in writing these words, that it brings such a level of completeness to the moment – that it becomes in a sense a spiritual experience.  I’ve heard the same from others.  Work becomes play and then everything combines into just “being life”.  Every moment is “to live for”.

So how are you called to serve?  Are you being a force for good on the planet in your own special and unique way?  Are you living your life purpose?  Are you fully experiencing the vast beauty and love in each and every moment of your life?

The more you live your life purpose, the more you serve the greater good, and the more beauty and love you sense in every moment.  What are you waiting for?  Now is the moment.

Blessings.

Mark Gilbert

NOTE:  If you enjoy the musings of our guest blogger, Mark Gilbert, visit his website at Conscious Bridge to read more.