The Dawn Treader

Did you realize that that now is where eternity touches time?  Does that bake your noodle?

I think about time a lot.  So did C.S. Lewis. So did Augustine.   From Augustine's Confessions ( Book XI ) :

"But even now it is manifest and clear that there are neither times future nor times past. Thus it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. For these three do coexist somehow in the soul, for otherwise I could not see them. The time present of things past is memory; the time present of things present is direct experience; the time present of things future is expectation. "

Our experience of time can only be now.   The past is not time ... it is only memory.  The future is not time ... it is only expectation.  For us, time is only now.  That is where we live.

The problem is that we so often twitter it away.  We regret things in the past.  We long for things in the future.  Both take our mind off the present.

"It is far better to make them live in the Future.  Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear.  Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it, we make them think of unrealities.  In a word, the Future is, of all things the thing least like eternity.  It is the most completely temporal part of time -- for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future, Gratitude looks to the Past, and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead."
~ C.S. Lewis, speaking through the voice of a demon (Uncle Screwtape), The Screwtape Letters

Steven Curtis Chapman captures the importance of living in the present.

There’s only one who knows
What’s really out there waiting
In all the moments yet to be
And all we need to know
Is He’s out there waiting
To Him the future’s history
And He has given us a treasure called right now
And this is the only moment we can do anything about
And if it brings you tears

Then taste them as they fall
And let them soften your heart
And if it brings you laughter
Then throw your head back
And let it go, let it go
You gotta let it go
Listen to your heartbeat

The present is a gift.  If your now includes sadness, then cry.  Taste the tears.  Let God soften you.  If your now includes laughter, then let loose with a belly laugh.  Let it go and enjoy the gift of the present.

The future will become a now ... all in good time. :)  Live in the now, friend.