The Present is not Modern

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I am learning that the present is not modern.

Presence echoes with ancestral voices. The very depth of the present is the past. Too often, the "modern" rejects the past, attempting to blossom without roots, mistaking individualism for enlightenment, and cynicism for profundity.

There is nothing "modern" about the well of Presence. The deeper you go down into it, the more ancient wisdom you draw up. The silence of that well is the chant of your grandmothers - never cynical, always tender, yet enduring as stone.

I think of Forster's lovely lines from 'Howard's End,' when sisters reconcile by rediscovering their family's furniture in an old house...

'And all the time their salvation was lying round them, the past sanctifying the present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring that there would after all be a future with laughter and the voices of children.'
The way is neither to reject the past, nor cling to the past, but to honor the past as it resonates in this moment.

Comments

cmb said…
Howards End, also one of my favorite novels: "Only connect." This is what permeates our awareness and it is the English major's mantra. All those years ago in college when I was learning great things from William Blake, EM Forster, Shakespeare,Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc.,
people were always questioning me, "what will you DO with that major"? Ha ha, joke's on them. Nothing but connect.
6/03/2012 5:15 PM
AKL said…
Interesting you should mention this. I was just thinking about this today, how I majored in English literature, and I thought: "How useless, yet how it enriches my life." Thanks so much for your comment.
6/03/2012 8:50 PM
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