A Testimony of Being Present

George MacDonald in his  A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (1880) writes:

Therefore I make provision, ere I begin
To do the thing thou givest me to do,
Praying,—Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin.
Amidst my work, open thine eyes on me,
That I may wake and laugh, and know and see
Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,
And singing drop into my work anew.


The sentiment, couched in religious terms, speaks to a particular experience of knowing life or consciousness that sustains beyond the death of the body and the abstractions of ego consciousness; "to wake and laugh and know and see" so that his or her heart sings and rejoices even in the tasks and worries of the day. Freedom from life trapped in circumstance because we know our essence is not bound to those events, thoughts, feelings, emotions, reflected in the world.


To be Present is to live between the numbers on a number line. It is not to think of the numbers but to live in the activity that manifests the numbers. This is freedom from abstract points and life in the eternity behind them ... the Present.

Yesterday, I "made provision, ere I began", my work on a Tabitha Bag to work in the Present; to awaken in the process of creating. The outcome was not the focus. I made provision to not fall asleep by focusing on the outcome but to balance abstract material creation (which is selfishness) with the Present - inner light within - and I sang as each particular moment of creation faded into another moment of creation bathed in the flow of the eternal Present.

If I should slow diverge, and listless stray
Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright,
O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray;
Let me not perish of the ghastly blight.
Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light;
Then merest approach of selfish or impure
Shall start me up alive, awake, secure.

A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (1880)
George MacDonals