A word about 'the present moment'

Just recently, I was reading a treatment of the approach of Pierre De Caussade, in a book which was summarising various approaches to spirituality. In a nutshell, the brief treatment of DeCaussade spoke of how he focussed on worshipping God in the 'present moment' - which, of course, is the only place we can find God at the time. A dear priest friend of mine is very much one to refer to this spirituality - where thoughts of past and future can blind us, whether through desire, discontent, fear, anxiety and the like. (This, of course, is far from an exhaustive treatment of DeCaussade - I never favoured him much, because he seemed chilly to me, and I saw dangers of quietism... but neither is that what came to my mind today.)

The dangers for a Romantic such as myself is that, much as we pine for heaven, we always tend to feel, deep down, that we can find a better 'place' than where we are at the moment. This can inspire a great deal of creativity but, in the spiritual life, it tends to cause pain, jealousy, and, at the top of my own list, dreadful fear. I think one of the hardest things in this life is its total uncertainty. None of us know if we'll be here tomorrow - yet it is not death that I fear. (If my religious beliefs are true, I'd be closer to God - if I've been totally wrong, at least it would mean no more suffering since one would have no existence.... that is, oh please God no, unless those who believe in reincarnation are correct...) My fear is suffering, here - of wishing one could die just for the pain to cease.

It occurs to me, thinking of some wonderful, highly artistic people, some spiritual into the bargain, who are Romantics like myself - and the 19th century had a great many. The sort of knots of fear into which we can tie ourselves make me think that, for all that I despise Freud, a Romantic era may have been one that led him to assume everyone was neurotic.

Yet what I wish to share for a moment was a thought I had about DeCaussade's own time - post revolutionary France. It must have been frightening, with the (real) monarchy and Church having tumbled, and a few weak imitations of both coming forth. But a very sad part, focussed on 'merit' and 'reparation,' was clear in some of the works I studied about the 19th century. The Counter-Revolutionaries sought to replicate the suffering of Jesus Christ, and thereby save the nation which participated in the revolution’s crimes, and particularly murder of the monarchs. (Ideas of this type still emerge, albeit in an altered form. Just study any site today where people see the sole mission of Catholics, Baptists, whomever as to be to make reparation for abortions - which they did not have, but which seem to be on their conscience if they live in nations where it is legal, as where is it not? And I say that as one who does not believe in abortion.)

Perhaps DeCaussade's stress on the 'present moment' has larger dimensions, if we consider that he lived in a time and place where people were looking for 'vicarious suffering' left and right. It must have been difficult to remind people of the present moment - where they could meet God, but also where they could confront the distractions, weakness, and sinfulness which hampers such intimacy - in a time when one could be a noble victim in one's own mind by making supposed atonement for 'national sins' which dated to long before one was born.