It’s 8:45 on a Sunday in Lake George. I’m not hungry but if you want breakfast you’re forced to get it between 7 and 9. So I begrudgingly go down to the Lakeview dining room.
The lake view does not disappoint. The water is a canvas for the sky and the rich Autumn landscape of red and gold and orange. It carries the rolling fog into the distant mountains.
I take it in for 45 seconds before I turn to my food.
The complaints start rolling in. The pancake bottom is stale. Did they leave them out overnight? Am I eating yesterdays food? This doesn’t stop me from stuffing myself unconsciously because i’m now absorbed in a book.
Now the stale pancakes are gone and guilt has appeared on the scene. The lake is still beautiful. I try to remember to look.
They used to talk about the Presence of God in church. They spoke of it like it was a sacred conjuring they uniquely brought about with their particular worship songs and star prayer lives.
It made you feel special. Other. Better than. You’d bet Jane across the street couldn’t bring about the Presence of God.
It taught me how Presence brings you up on the top of the world. It reveals truths in birds eye views, unlocks appreciation, serenity, sometimes ecstasy.
Now I know Presence as immersion in the great wide open Now.
The sense of wonder when you look at Lake George in the morning in autumn. The flash of excitement when you hear a relatable song. The chill in your bones when someone says what you were thinking.
Before the future or the past invades. Before judgement covers the moment like dark clouds.
And I learned that instances of Presence can be expanded. You can stretch them. For instance if you go get Present in the same way every Sunday morning, you find slightly more space between impulses each time. You can do this until familiarity numbs you, and then you have to go find a new practice.
I walk down to the lake, and sitting in a wooden rocking chair near its edge, I force my eyes upon it. Now I go in and out of appreciation, itchiness, and the urge to pay my phone bill. This goes on for twenty minutes and I call it a successful Sunday service.