Out of the District

"We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching...Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it it inevitable that we should never be so."-Blaise Pascal

None of us are special. We all live and try under the same sun. We all get caught in the same rain. Yet constantly I try to escape what I am by thinking of what is ahead. The present is only time we are ever real. What could keep us here and content? What could give us a sense of belonging even when we are far away from what we could call home, or when all the pieces of life have been exploded beyond recognition? I think it is simply the belief that our present is the architecture of our own maker. We are always attempting to understand God's plan--once again trying to look forward. But the perfect plan of our maker is best known through acceptance of the precise moment in time that we occupy.