Tag Archives: living in the present

March 25, 2019 · 23:56

A Walking Anachronism: thoughts on Approaching my 59th Birthday

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In two days I celebrate my 59th birthday amid a lot of physical issues regarding and concerns for the future of the country I am reminded that in today’s military I am an anachronism. I’m old, broken, and pretty much useless. I have so many medical and physical therapy appointments that my deputy and other staff pretty much handle everything, and I sign a few things, give them advice and support them.

In the mean time I try to collect the multitude of medical records from the different branches that hold them, and since I am still being treated every so often I have to request the latest bunch. I am sure that I have over 2000 pages of them. Today I organized them. I bought a bunch of those brown accordion file binders, the big ones, hold up to 5 1/2 inches of documents each. I have them dived up into the old handwritten records, the new records in a system called ALTA, which I have no idea what it stands for; of which there are so many that it requires two binders to hold them all; my mental health records, all of which have been occurred since I returned from Iraq in 2008, I have a full binder of those and am waiting on the records from the civilian psychiatrist the Navy sent me to at Camp LeJeune to complete that set as well as the records I continue to compile. I also have a binder of dental records in which I have also placed the CDs of my radiology studies. The whole collection must weigh 25 or 30 pounds, and I have a big bag to carry them around in, it was actually a bag sent back with Judy from the hospital after her first knee replacement surgery.

Last night was tough. I had a bunch of stuff going in my mind about the future of the country under Trump. I couldn’t be in the moment and Judy called me on it. I went to bed early but woke up with my left hip in screaming pain. Of course it was about 4 AM and the dogs decided that they needed to go outside. In agony I hobbled down the stairs and let them out, and after rewarding them I dragged myself up to bed. It still hurts like the devil so I have an early appointment to get it looked at, afterward I get to do physical therapy. The only good thing about it was that it made me forget the pain in my right and left knees and right hip. I am beginning to wonder with all the physical injuries piling up and needing treatment if I will have to have my official retirement date pushed back. Next week I go to the sports medicine doctor who has been working on my right knee, I presume that the next step is sending me to the bone and joint center. Since arthroscopic surgery has already been ruled out the next step will likely be be knee replacement, after which they might get around to my hips and shoulder.

I am a broken down anachronism. Of course once I get repaired I won’t be broken down, but I’ll still be an anachronism. In season five of the series The Blacklist, Raymond Reddington is asked a question by Agent Elizabeth Keane who has been revealed as his daughter:

Liz: How does it feel to be a walking anachronism?

Red: Righteous.

In a way it does, especially when someone asks you out of the blue to tell you your story because it was included in an article that was required reading for a class on Moral Injury at Yale Divinity School. At my point in life there is nothing to embellish, nothing to try to make me look heroic, just tell the truth, warts and all. It is as Reddington described, righteous.

So this anachronism will continue to live, do all I can to get my injuries fixed, and look forward to a future that has been as good or better than my past. Judy helped get that into my head this afternoon when confronting me on my attitude.

In spite of everything I can say I’ve had a great life, a wonderful wife, and over the course of our marriage 6 dogs, three of which live with us and are the light of our lives, and two of the others who make ghost appearances from time to time. The last is obviously too happy in heaven getting her belly rubbed with an infinite supply of puppy cookies.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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December 30, 2012 · 17:42

All that We Are and Can Be: Where Past, Present and Future Meet

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“The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.” Peter Benchley “Jaws”

St Augustine of Hippo once asked “How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet?”

It is an interesting question but I think that the question is flawed. I think that the past lives in the present much more than we would like to think and that our future, though unwritten can unfold in a multitude of ways and possibilities.

Many of us live in the past as if it were today. We, individually and collectively, as individuals and nations live in the past and look to it much more fondly than when it was our present. I think that historian Will Durant possibly said it the best: “The past is not dead. Indeed, it is often not even past.”

As a historian myself I value the past and seek answers and wisdom from it to use in the present because what we do in the present does, for better or worse defines our future. Confucius said “study the past if you would define the future.” He did not say to live in the past.

That is something that I have been learning for close to 20 years now when my Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, using a Star Trek Next Generation metaphor from the episode A Matter of Time.  In the episode a shadowy visitor claiming to be from the future refuses to help claiming that if he were to help that his “history – would unfold in a way other than it already has.”

Finally Picard is forced to make a decision and confronts the visitor, who turns out to be a thief from the past using time travel to collect technology to enrich himself. Picard responds:

“A person’s life, their future, hinges on each of a thousand choices. Living is making choices! Now, you ask me to believe that if I make a choice other than the one that appears in your history books, then your past will be irrevocably altered. Well… you know, Professor, perhaps I don’t give a damn about your past, because your past is my future, and as far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t been written yet!”

It was in telling me that my future did not have to be my past that opened a door of life and faith that I had never experienced before and which showed me that life was to be boldly lived in the present. While it meant a lot then, it means more now for the past according to William Shakespeare “is prologue.”

We cannot help being influenced by the past. We should indeed learn from it, but we cannot remain in it or try to return to it. Kierkegaard said that  “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” 

Since I am a Christian my faith in that future is in the God who is eternal, the God of love. Victor Hugo in Les Miserables said “Love is the only future God offers.” That is the future that I want to envision.

Living is making choices and the future hinges on thousands of them. Many of these choices we make automatically without thought simply because we have always done them that way, or because that is how it was done in the past. However, if we want to break the cycle, if we want to live in and envision that future of the God of love then we have to live in the present though the past lives in us.

T.S. Elliot penned this verse:

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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