Celebrate the Moment
by Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts
Readings
Zephaniah 3:17
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
Psalm 150
Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Today’s video message can be seen via Facebook
Read the written message below with music videos
Celebrating the moment isn’t always easy, indeed, many of us have difficulty entering the moment, let alone celebrating it. And yet, this practice of intentionally celebrating all the gifts in our lives, especially as we receive them in this very moment, is a powerful tool to help us connect with joy, our intrinsic peace, and the abundance of the Spirit known by many names that empowers each of us. With our world in sometimes seeming disarray, it can be hard to find an excuse to celebrate, which is why coming together as family and friends can be such a wonderous, transformative thing because it helps us to find that inner jubilee. Indeed, if we are to surmount the issues facing us, we must learn to celebrate the natural wonders of humanity and the earth and allow that joy to bring us into presence and to the leading and healing of the Spirit.
Take a moment to appreciate the moment. Allow yourself to slow down no matter the pressures that you feel and celebrate all that you have, particularly in terms of spirit, connection, and life, not ruminating on any perceived failures. Allow a sense of presence to ground you in a type of peaceful celebration of being in the here and now, releasing any thoughts that seek to pull you away.
It feels natural to most of us to ruminate, to identify with our thinking, rambling mind. It feels natural to dwell on what people think, perhaps even hearing it in our minds as their voices. We can get caught up in the future and attached to the past. Each of these things distracts us from presence, what Christ and the Buddhas call being awake. Their teachings give us reminders of how to find our intrinsic presence, our intrinsic joy, telling us to finally just let go of all the mental gymnastics and just be.
Part of waking up to celebration involves dropping our limiting beliefs. Our limiting beliefs about ourselves and our world keep us in analytical modes of being and create a sense of not being enough. It’s hard to celebrate life when we carry our perceived issues into every moment, worrying about the future and beating ourselves up. These limiting beliefs also keep us in our addictions.
So, take a moment to release your limiting beliefs about everything. Allow your mind to clear into present moment engagement, knowing that you are one with the infinite and don’t truly know what you are. Yes, we have words that point to what we are, but even science is just barely scratching the surface of symbolically describing the wonders of consciousness, the brain, and our universe.
You may notice that habitual thoughts and a sense of getting lost in reflection keep occurring no matter what you try. This is where celebrating helps! Take another gander around, celebrating what you see, hear, feel, and smell. Notice the wonder of being able to perceive and the beauty of what catches your attention. Even as thoughts come up, treat them like something else beautifully mundane that your eye catches, without attachment or fight. Accept their presence and disappearance, remembering to come back into a feeling of celebratory presence if you lose it.
This type of presence is characterized by the many deep wisdoms that our scriptures share. Because we’re not analyzing, ruminating, dominating, or dividing, instead just holding an engaged space for what comes, we are prone to love ourselves and love others as ourselves. When we let go of our worries about our reputations and the future, we tend to be honest and trustworthy, present for the needs of others. And when we celebrate the moment, we are listening to the many sages that have told us that God wants us to celebrate God, life itself and love itself, in every moment, no matter the circumstances.
Imagine the love and presence that God must have for all creation. It’s God’s love and joy that must energize every facet of creation, knowing that all evil is but a passing dream to the infinitely empowered beings that must suffer it for a short, passing time. God is us at our core and knows that there’s nothing to worry about, that all challenges serve to eventually empower, in this life, a next, or in the spiritual realm. Imagine the sense of presence needed to actively create each moment and start to accept it as your own, forgetting any thoughts that you are less than a true child of God, an angel with hidden wings.
When we start to lean into this celebratory presence it truly is like we become a new person, reborn in the light of God. As we become celebratory in this scriptural way, we let go of our memories to a degree, our conceptualizations and habits, and allow the living God to start to lead us from a place of deep wisdom and love within. The scriptures tell us to be alert and aware because the Lord can come at any moment, and what’s interesting is that taking steps to truly become alert and aware of the living Spirit around us are the Lord’s steps coming closer to us. As the present moment comes more into focus, God herself does the same.
Connect soon,
Cory