Presence of a Child

Today's blog post is brought to you by Beth Wendler, who teaches Music Together at Sundance.

The Place you are right now, God circled on a map for you.

— Hafiz quoted in Marrow of Flame by Dorothy Walters

I’m often amazed with children’s ability to be present.  They don’t worry about the next moment or the past moment.  I most love their presence with what they are feeling at the moment.  If they’re hungry, they let you know.  If they’re done with an activity, they let you know.  They don’t spend a lot of energy trying to be in any other state....than the one they're in.  I find it wonderfully refreshing.  

The most refreshing aspect of young children’s presence is their state of being.  Not only are they present physically, where their feet are, as someone once said.  They are equally as present to their emotional state.  There is little denying their frustration, anger, sadness, joy, quiet.  They are quick to expression and quick to resolution.  

Sometimes I watch in wonder, they don’t worry about what to make for dinner, they don’t worry about the phone calls they didn’t make yesterday.  In this moment I have everything I need.  In this moment, I’m happy.  In this moment I am singing.  In this moment I am.....
It’s so elusive for us.  It requires such practice.  Is it simply that they don’t have the responsibility?  In their purity do they realize that in this moment all is well...and in this moment all is well.....and in this moment...?

There is never a more important moment than the one they are in.  This is really the focal point of presence.  As Ram Das says, “Be Here Now.”  The potential for fullness and expansion that would come if we could treat each moment as the most important, the only important one.

What a gift we would be giving to ourselves, our loved ones, acquaintances, if each moment we share with another is the most important one, the only one.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel said this about presence, “The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.”

This is the beauty of children’s presence.  They face sacred moments all day long!