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I am weary of all this talk about living in the “now.” It always involves a putdown of the past. When we put down a part of our life – and the past is a major part of someone’s life when they are over 40 – we have basically rejected our own life. There are dangers in losing ourselves in any part of our life, past or present. The biggest danger of living totally in the now is rejecting our past but there is another danger: It can make us feel guilty to even think about the future and planning for the future is what gives us pensions and savings accounts, new homes, and all the other things that require financial planning. There are two dangers of living in the past. One is getting mired down in all the bad stuff until we paralyze today with our depression. The other danger is becoming so lost in the good stuff that we feel we have arrived and need do nothing today. The insightful spiritual teacher Maticintin (www.humuh.org) hit the nail on the head when she said, “Anything we did in the past that was for the good of the whole stands strong and bright in the present and, of course, that’s what makes the future.” Do not feel sheepish when a tiny thought of something that happened yesterday slips into your awareness. Our brains run constantly on a short rail from now to all our yesterdays and back again. They carry the perspective of the present moment back to those events. Anytime we add perspective to past events, we actually change those memories. Yes, we actually change the past simply because we see it differently. Everyone’s past is very personal and subjective. One of my favorite Bible verses is Joel’s statement, “I will restore to you the years the locust has eaten.” If you see the past as people and events set in concrete, Joel’s words are sheer idiocy. But the past is not set in concrete. Our past is what we remember and what it meant to us at the time we filed it away for future reference. We often file it away incorrectly. We think something was a disaster when it proved to be a great blessing. The event looks completely different when place in the light of a higher truth. There may be historical facts in our pasts that need to be acknowledged but forever and ever, our pasts will be what we remember about those historical facts. You can know the exact date of three marriages and three divorces but those historical facts have almost nothing to do with what you remember of those events and the meaning you attached to them at the time. They also have nothing to do with the meaning you attach to them today. All the people who were part of our pasts need to be acknowledged. To deny or repress them is to be unable to make them stand “strong and bright in the present” as Maticitin suggests. To make them stand “strong and bright in the present” does not mean to see them as good when our dominant feeling about them are bad. It simply means to see the truth of them and to see them clearly. Your mother was your mother in the past, she is still your mother today and she will be your mother tomorrow. Regardless of the way you filed here away in your “mother memory box” in the past, you can always see her more strongly and brighter. In time you can learn to be less judgmental about her bad qualities and more appreciative of her good qualities. Even though you are dealing with your past, all this is happening in the present moment. Live in the now but bring your past into your now and keep restoring the years the locusts have eaten.
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