In
the Past or in the Present? 
Are you walking dead or are you walking
alive?
"Behold, the former things have come to pass, and
new things do I declare; before you they spring forth."
Isaiah 42:9
In the Greek myth of Orpheus
Descending. Orpheus went into the underworld to rescue his wife from death.
He was told that he could do so as long as while on his way out, he didn’t
look back. Well, he looked back. Consequently, she was lost forever-frozen
in time! The same similar story is found in the Bible. Lot and his wife are
spared by God from the fiery destruction of the evil cities, Sodom and
Gomorrah. They are told by the angel not to look back at the city as they
are leaving. Lot’s wife looks back; she is turned into a pillar of salt.
The same is true for us when we don’t
let go of the past We become frozen in the past like Lot’s wife who became
a pillar of salt and like Orpheus looking back at his wife sees only a
frozen memory. Lifeless. We are dead to life. And like a pillar of salt we
become bitter like salt. Bitter over the fact something was taken from us or
something didn’t last forever. We are no longer moving or changing. Stuck!
The only change that is happening is the deterioration of our body and our
minds because we lack the vitality of ongoing life. Like a pillar of salt,
rigid, with time, we begin to crumble. We cease to be moistened and renewed
by the current of life. We like Orpheus are in the underworld visiting the
frozen images of yesterday. We see people doing the same thing to us as in
the past, the same failures, the same relationships with different names,
the same attitude and outlook, the same insecurity, the same outcomes- we
always keep winding up in the same spot. Stuck in time! We ARE in the same
spot! We are a tombstone. Petrified like a pillar marking some past event or
past person we won’t let go of. A lost marriage, unrequited love, tragic
events, a dead companion, past hurts, past regrets, past cherished moments,
our childhood. Whatever we want to go back to. We avoid the pain of letting
go and the price we pay for that is death! We cut ourselves off from the
flow of LIFE. Our thinking and actions becomes become old and rigid. We are
dead to Life.
It is ironic that those who live in the past age
quickly and are prone to alcoholism and addictions. While those who change
and live in the present stay younger, happier and are not addicted. Mother
Theresa once said, "Being in the Present is to be with God."
Get Back to the Present: Since Life
is a series of deaths starting with the loss of childhood into adolescence.
By letting go, we can be reborn into new and greater things. In other words
grow or “grow up”. By being constantly reborn we enlarge our capacity to
experience greater capacities of blessings and opportunities. When we get
stuck to someone or something that we need to let go of, we stop in the flow
of life. Prosperity and Health cease. Medical science has proven that
brooding over the past can bring rapid old age, arthritis, failing vision,
heart trouble, high blood pressure, depression and death. With God’s help
we have to constantly let go of people, memories, ideas, yesterday. We must
be in the present to experience Life. We have to renew ourselves daily to
attract the blessings in life. We must save our energy from depression
caused by being stuck. Youth is only an eternity in the present. In the
present we attract prosperity, health and joy! Good things occur regularly.
We move ahead in the flow of Life. We are ALIVE!
"Remember not the
things of the past, nor consider things of old; behold I do new things."
Isaiah 43:18-19
"Behold, the former
things have come to pass, and new things do I declare; before you they
spring forth." Isaiah 42:9
