This Moment Too is Eternity

 Sir Tom Stoppard

Millions long for immortality who do not know

what to do with themselves

on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

 

[These few lines struck me as so personally true that I laughed out loud - a virtual 'ah-ha! moment. The strictures of the pandemic have brought home this truth. Because of the limitations of health and old age and the current restrictions of the pandemic, what I prayed for so strongly for years has now been forced on me: hours, even days of solitude and silence. Though I would have sworn this was my most longed for lifestyle, still I find myself at times complaining mightily. If I want any peace at all I find I must live by the adage: “Be here now” and when I do that, this present moment is peaceful and lovely or painful and noisy, and perfect, just as it is. However, staying there, 'here' and 'now', for months and months, is hotter and more difficult than I could have imagined.

We can read all the books and know the inspiring and truth-filled sayings, but if we don’t live the truth we find there, it won’t do us any good when push comes to shove and we are asked to endure months and months of difficulty. A former teacher used to warn that, 'If we are merely students or philosophers, when a naked woman walks in the room our philosophy will fly out the window!' Life puts the proof to our spiritual ideas. 

(Sir Tom Stoppard was a British playwright and essayist.)