A friend of mine just turned forty. In a passing statement, I appeared to catch him off guard when I said, “Forty was a turning point for me. I can’t wait to tell you about it.”
You see, forty gave me a gift that I too often denied myself. That is, the gift of the present.
Our minds spend most of their time racing from past to future. The future invites imagination and fantasy of what could or should be. Even fear of the future is kept contained in the mystery of the unknown. The past shapes our narratives of what is real or true. Whether it be nostalgia or pain, we can’t help but look back in order to know how to look forward.
Yet in the racing of our minds between the past and the future, we stumble over this awkwardness that we’re forced to reconcile. Her name is the present. Without even realizing it, I spent years trying to make peace with her. You see, the present can be boring, mundane and serves as a constant reminder of the weighty tension between our ideals and our reality.
Perhaps you are familiar with the work of Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative. I was glad to see their important mission gaining a lot of attention through the recent release of the film “Just Mercy.” “Just Mercy,” based on Stevenson’s book by the same name, chronicles his early career as a young attorney fighting against the unequal representation and blatant injustice in the criminal justice system that resulted in the wrongful conviction and death row sentence of Walter McMillian.
While McMillian’s story is the centerpiece of the film, we also meet another death row inmate, Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent 30 years in prison and 28 on death row for a crime that he did not commit. Hinton connects with Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative after 15 years on death row, and they work together to fight for truth and justice for another 13 years before Hinton is exonerated.
THIRTY YEARS. THIRTEEN YEARS. That’s a lot of ‘presents’.
Living in the wake of injustice and poverty or fighting alongside those who suffer requires us to hold together seemingly opposing forces in the moment:
Both patience AND urgency for change
Both radical belief in what must be AND radical acceptance of what is today
Many say the past is what shapes us, but I believe that the present reveals our true character. When we fully embrace today, we realize the gifts in front of us and we can appreciate the magnitude of the mundane and the way we are being refined minute by minute.
I encourage you today to be awake not only to how the present moment is shaping you, but also to be more fully present to those around you. We need the encouragement and support of community to remind us of the gift of the present.
Written by Marlo Fox, Executive Director of Think Tank, Inc. You can learn more about her work at our website, thinktank-inc.org.