NOW IS IT

I have always been urgent about my use of time and savoring it. I wanted to remember and capture and live fiercely. It may have been the Christmas Eve car crash that wiped out my brother's fiance's family when I was twelve years old. (Grand parents, parents, and three children, one a baby.) I write some about it in my book I PRAY ANYWAY: Devotions for the Ambivalent, and will probably tell more in another book. My point here is I want to squeeze as much out of life as i can. 

At this point in my life, I no longer have the sense of being able to do something  later, tomorrow,
when I have enough time, in the new year. Now Is It. So I wonder about that 'it' quite alot.
In fact I just did two Do It Now things. I took my daughter and hers to see my former mother-in-law. She is 97. Now is it. I took my Oregon daughter for a luxurious overnight when she was visiting. She was heading home to have a biopsy for a lump on her breast. We did exactly what we wanted to do, ate what we wanted to eat and bought what we wanted to buy. (All turned out well.)
But Now Is It,

I ask myself often "what is the best use of 'this' time right this minute?" Playing cards and laughing with any of my five kids is always the best use. Being with grand kids is also a no brainer.
I say this so you don't think I'm talking about horrible tasks like stirring the compost or duty tasks like a phone call you just don't want to make. For me, tasks need to fit around all the things that matter most.

I was and am struggling with how much time to spend on the book I've written (go to joycewilsonsanford.com to buy it and read my 3 different weekly blogs). I kind of wonder what to do with the darn book. It is quirky. In case you don't know it has daily reflections based on my experience with, doubts about and pleasure in prayer. Do I want to Face book it to death, Tweet til people want to scream, and do readings wherever I can? Not sure. 

OK, so I'm struggling with how much I want to give to the book. And in my notebook of quotes, two jumped out at me today.

A Poem by Christopher Fry/from book SCIENCE TO GOD by Peter Russell

—Thank God our time is now, when wrong   

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us ’til we take

The longest stride of soul man ever took.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise is exploration into God—
                      and

—When a doctoral student at Princeton asked, “What is there left

in the world for original dissertation research?” Albert Einstein replied,

“Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer"—

From PRAYER by Phillip Yancey 

Affairs are indeed now soul size and prayer and it's power is becoming science

Think I'll hang in there for awhile

(Unless someone wants to play Pinochle)