in these challenging times we are hearing/reading/thinking a lot about a “new normal”. we are asked to consider “what’s next?” we are encouraged to create a vision for a more compassionate, equitable world. we are turned toward the future.as i sit with this profound support and encouragement i wonder, “is that really any different from the world we have inhabited in the past?…a world always pointed toward the future?”
the future is unattainable without the present, each present moment. with attention focused on the future, no matter how attractive we might visualise it, we are drawn away from right now, right here. what is true now? what is real now, in this moment, in this place?
for many, the present reality is filled with fear, pain, worry, despair, violence, grief and poverty. for these people the current normal isn’t very pretty. for these people, with whom we are intimately connected, the vision of the future is bleak. the present reality is very different for someone living on the 14th floor of a tower block in london...
to someone living in the leafy suburbs that surround london. for the former, lockdown is the true sense of their reality. for the suburban dweller, sheltering in place is more comfortable in the garden.
yet…the inner world may be the same for both.part of my vision, that can be cultivated in the present, is a world where all are educated to find and dwell in the indestructible source of connection in the heart. by holding that space in the present we can contribute to the healing of the world, not only from coronavirus and also the destructive effects of “business as usual” as we have known it.may all beings be safe and protected.may all beings be well.may all beings be loved.