Bearing Witness to the Present Moment – Raised Catholic 179

The following is a transcript of a Raised Catholic podcast episode.

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Today is episode 179: Bearing Witness to the Present Moment

Hi friends. This week around 9:15 on a Friday morning, I left my yoga class and parked down by the water to finish up my coffee and mango smoothie that I had brought along with me that day. I was in a Massachusetts beach town, a big tourist destination, and so as I sat in my car facing the harbor that early morning, there was quite a lot to see.

In moments like this when we can observe without necessarily being observed, it can become abundantly clear that there is so much happening in each present moment, stuff that can be so very easy to miss.

While sitting in my car, I saw a big group of middle school kids boarding a large boat for a whale watch, and I could both hear and feel their excitement even from some distance away. No matter what actual words the kids were using, the feeling of what I heard them say was something like,

“Oh my gosh, we are on a boat!” or “We’re not in school and we are on a boat!” “Boats exist and we are on one together!” “Whales exist and we might even see one today!” “We are floating on an ocean that is millennia old, yet we are only thirteen or fourteen years old, and this is a day we will always remember!”

“We are here with our friends on an adventure and that is what life is!”

Or, anyway, it was something like that, probably. Ah, I love the exuberance of kids, don’t you? They really see life as the adventure it is in a way that we don’t. Well, from my vantage point there in the car, I also saw two women walking their little breathless bulldog who was trying to pull over for a rest. And then there was an older man, a tourist who was talking with his friend in their shared southern accent all about where to get breakfast and whether it was possible that they could rent a boat that day.

Shortly after that, I saw a little group of four adorable nuns, and I smiled at them from my driver’s seat. When one nun smiled back and waved, I saw it for the true blessing it was. Then, I saw a group of teens sit with their iced coffees to watch the water gently lap its way into shore as it does all day every day without need of our direction or our watching. I saw all manner of grasses, bushes and trees growing everywhere, even where they weren’t planted. These same things were growing all along the highway on my way to yoga class that day, too, these amazing things that want to grow and which know how to grow. Things are growing in every vacuum that Nature abhors, making themselves known and seen, making a way for themselves in God’s providence.

And before I saw one particular woman pass by, I smelled the smoke from her cigarette as my sinuses and lungs, which developed in a home with a smoker, immediately reacted and constricted. And I thought about how true it is that we really do affect one another, don’t we, even if we don’t interact directly. We’re all feeling the energy of that these days, don’t you think? In every person, family, community, every church, every country – every one of us in all of the many places that our energy and words and actions go out to be in contact with our fellow humans, we always affecting one another.

Eventually, music started playing as this tourist town opened up for business under my watch. They played “I Got You, Babe,” by Sonny and Cher, and I thought, yes, we really do have each other in this funny little human school in which we are all enrolled, don’t we?

At home, I trim branches from the bushes in the yard each spring and I bring them inside in pitchers full of water to watch them open and become what they already are. First the forsythia burst bright yellow in my kitchen and then I’ll bring in the azalea and the dogwood blooms. As these plants all take on their summer green, I bring in the rhododendron branches last, and these purple beauties teach the biggest lesson of them all.

Because all of these spring flowers become – the azalea and the dogwood – they all unfold in time, but the purple rhododendron blooms have a slightly different process. The blooms are held in place by these green-yellow sticky leaves called sepals, which protect the closed buds until they are ready to open. As these sepals open, the closed buds shoot up and out, and when they’re no longer needed, the sepals fall. On each rhododendron flower, some buds open days before others and this kind of lopsidedness or unpredictability of the whole bloom makes them fascinating to watch, at least to me.

Because the opening will happen in its own moment, right? It is happening and if I did nothing but watch, I would surely see it unfold. I would watch every sepal fall, but we don’t do that, do we? We don’t tend to watch, to bear witness to the present moment. We are busy and distracted, we look behind or ahead. But all the while, birds are flying in a blue sky by the water. People from all over the world are gathering in one place of a speck of a dot on a map. Boats exist and so do oceans and so, amazingly, does such a grand thing as a whale, if you can believe that. I do hope those kids saw one whale or a dozen whales out there on their field trip on the water, but even if they didn’t, the truth is that I saw them and so much else that was so alive and so in motion in this little harbor during the twenty minutes or so that I sat there. I bore witness to the present moment, which is the only moment we ever get, by the way, and that was miracle enough for me. Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow and there’s not a single thing we can do about the past, friends. Much as many of us like to plan, we are not God’s project manager. As artist Scott Erickson said this week, God is the One in charge of surprises. You never know when an email or a phone call could change everything, and it is true that it’s the Lord who makes our steps. This day – this one in which you are hearing these words right now – is the day the Lord has made, and I guess this whole experience down by the water made me want to rejoice and be glad in it, not just the day, which is uniquely made, but the moment, you know what I mean? And I guess I’m wondering, friend, how about you?

Thanks so much for being with me today. If you need me, you can find me on Instagram @kerrycampbellwrites, at Substack at kerrycampbellwrites.substack.com, where I hope you will leave a comment on this week’s episode, or on my website at kerrycampbell.org. Thanks so much for rating, reviewing, subscribing and most importantly, sharing this podcast with a friend. That makes a real difference in growing our community, so thanks. If you would like to support this podcast financially, there are a couple of ways for you to do that in the show notes, along with some resources related to today’s episode, so do check all of that out, but before we go, let’s pray together.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Oh God, this is the day that you have made. In this very moment, the grand drama of life and nature and relationships are all playing out all at once, if we have eyes to see. Please help us slow down and bear witness to the beauty all around us – in the sky and the water and in the grasses by the highway and the flowers in our own kitchens – and help us to know that these things are but a shadow of the beauty that is you and is your love for us.

Thank you, Jesus. We pray in your name for us and for our dear ones and wrapped in the mantle of our Mother, Mary. Amen.

Thanks so much for being with me today, friend. Go behold some beauty today in this day that you’re given. Tell me about it over on Substack, and I’ll see you next time.

Show Notes

This week I’ll tell the story of sitting by the water for a short while just witnessing the world, and learning that I want to do more of that.

Thanks as always to my friend, Peter Vaughan-Vail, for providing the beautiful harp music you hear in this and every episode.

Here are some resources to help you dig into this week’s topic on your own:

1. Video: ⁠12-day Rhododendron blooming time-lapse⁠

2. IG live: artist Scott Erickson on ⁠who’s in charge of surprise⁠

3. Substack: ⁠Letters from Love⁠, by Elizabeth Gilbert

4. Song: ⁠I Got You Babe⁠, by Sonny & Cher

5. Raised Catholic Podcast/transcript: ⁠Contemplative Summer Week Three: Contemplating Nature⁠ (check out the whole series wherever you get your podcasts

6. Journal question:

Stop in a given moment and ask yourself: what do I see, what do I hear, what do I smell, what do I taste, what can I touch that point me toward God – what can I know about Him and His nature based on what I am experiencing?

7. Poem by Mary Oliver:

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

8. Book: Devotions – ⁠The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver⁠