Terry Hershey

At a playground, a woman sits down next to a man seated on a park bench. "That's my son over there," she tells him, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater, gliding down the slide.

"He's a fine looking boy," the man said. "That's my son on the swing in the blue sweatshirt." Then, looking at his watch, he called to his son. "What do you say we go, Todd?"

Todd pleaded, "Dad, just five more minutes. Please? Just five more minutes."

The man nodded, and Todd continued swinging, his demeanor elated. Many minutes passed and the father called again to his son. "Todd, what do you think? Time to go now?"

Again Todd pleaded, "Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes." The man smiled and said, "O.K."

"My," the woman said, surprised. "You certainly are a patient father."

The man smiled, and said, "Last year, my older son Tommy was killed by a drunk driver while he was riding his bike, not far from here. I never spent much time with Tommy. And now, I'd give anything for just five more minutes with him. So I've vowed not to make the same mistake with Todd. He thinks he has five more minutes to swing. But the truth really is, I get five more minutes to watch him play."

Last week, I led a memorial service here on the island. For a friend-still in his early 50s-who died too young. We celebrated, told stories (some happy, some sad), shared memories, and as one might expect, nursed a little lament. As one islander put it in his eulogy, "I'm sitting here thinking, I sure wish I had called him every time I had the urge."

I understand. It is easy to second-guess, or to fear dying an unlived life, or to castigate ourselves for wasted moments.

But here's the deal: Well-intentioned or not, nursed regret only puts more padding between the present moment and me-which includes the people and choices that are in my life today.

Life is about the choices we make now, with these five more minutes.

Jesus' counsel, three little words, "Do not worry."

I like the take of this 83-year-old woman, "I'm not saving anything; I use my good china and crystal for every special event such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or the first Amaryllis blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank. "Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary."

My good friend knows wine. Writes about it, appreciates it, savors it. He also knows wine people. People with grand and exceptional wine cellars. He told me the story of a couple with one such cellar, a collection to admire. Now mature in age, the couple knew that their years were numbered, and that many of their friends had died with full wine cellars, those rare bottles collected for a special occasion. ("You know," he told my friend, "when we say we'll drink it when the occasion is right. And, for some reason, the occasion is never quite right.") So. They made a decision. They would collect no more wine. They would enjoy, take delight in and share the wine that they have. In their words, they decided to "drink their cellar."

Or, in the words of poet Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Okay. Count me in. Just tell me how. Isn't that the magical question? HOW? Is there a way to do this? Is it something about our need to perform? If I'm going to embrace the sacred present, I might as well excel at it!

We need to cut ourselves some slack here, assuming that there is a big prize in spiritual wellbeing for people who have Aced the test on embracing-the-sacred-present technique. I do know this: Embracing the sacred present isn't a beauty pageant. And I have a hunch that people who really do love (enjoy, live, give, embrace) life are literally, non-self-conscious about method or practice or performance.

In Rabbi Abraham Heschel's mind, it's even more basic. "I would say an individual dies when he ceases to be surprised. What keeps me alive - spiritually, emotionally, intellectually - is my ability to be surprised. I say, I take nothing for granted. I am surprised every morning that I see the sun shine again."

Yesterday a group of people toured my garden (a part of the Vashon Island Garden Tour). Preparing for this visit, I found that I looked at the garden differently, more critically, as if from the vantage point of reviewer or journalist. This sort of lens easily notices the glare of things left undone. And leads to gardening by apology. "I'm sorry. I should have fixed that. You should have been here last week." Gardening by apology is fueled by worry. And worry will keep us away from the present, and unable to just BE. (Although, truth be told, there is a good deal of adrenaline with worry, and it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.)

This morning, early, with coffee in hand, I walked the garden alone (if we don't count Bernie, one of our tabby cats who moseyed along). I stopped often, savored a few things that I missed yesterday. And enjoyed a good hit of gooseflesh from the delphiniums, in their stately, extravagant, ephemeral and wasteful splendor. I'm going in for breakfast soon. Really. In five more minutes.

Ten times a day something happens to me like this-some strengthening throb of amazement-some good sweet empathetic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness. Mary Oliver

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive---
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
St. Francis of Assisi

Peace,
Terry Hershey

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