The Practice of Being Present

Life is so hectic.

For all of the "time-saving technology" there is today, we are a generation that has no time. We are hurried and harried, rushed and stressed.

I think that we have lost the ability to just be.

To be present with the ones that we love.

To enjoy the sweet laughter of family members.

To cherish the friend that is next to us instead of the twenty that we can't stop texting.

The sister or friend that desperately may just need an ear but we just can't stop checking our social media long enough to be there for them.

We are connected to the nth-degree but are we connected how it really counts?

Our kids practically come out of the womb with electronic devices. They can wield a tablet and their mommy's cell phone but do they know how to play? Do they know how to pretend? Have they ever chased bubbles? Or butterflies? Or caught fireflies?

And the biggest question is, have we done it with them?

Have we played hide and seek?

Have we curled up and read bedtime stories, of knights and princesses and castles ancient?

Today, we think that we can be anything, and everything but the truth is somewhere along the line we have forgotten to just be.

We have lost the art of stillness.

Of eye to eye contact.

Of true friendship.

Of time well spent.

When was the last time you didn't have any electronics around you? No trilling whistles or bells and then just sat on the porch and watched the sky painted in brilliant hue change to indigo blue. My mom always told us that we need to take notice of sunset, for God painted it just for us... hoping we would just take a moment out of the business of our lives and take notice. To thank Him for the beauty that surrounds us every day but we are just too busy to see.

When was the last time you sat with the family at the dinner table and talked, and laughed and prayed? That you asked how another person's day was and then sat and listened?

When was the last time you played a board game with the TV off and no cellphones?

That you sat cuddled up with your little ones and read aloud to them?

Technology and the internet was supposed to draw us closer but in reality, I think it has done the opposite.

Gone are the days of family, the connection of friends.

What are your fondest memories with family?

The best times that you spent with friends?

Give us some of your ideas on how to be intentional and spend time with those that are the most important to us all and let's pick one or two to do each week as we learn again, or maybe for the first time, to just be...