by Jeff Salisbury
I am the sort 
of fellow who strives to be present – to live in and be aware of the moments as I am experiencing them – while at the same time living a life of no or at least few if any regrets… but it wasn’t always that way.
Therapy and counseling during a stressful time in my life helped some, but as I look back on my life I can point to one moment that a sense of clarity arrived about the need to strive to live life in that way.
In 1981, my father died suddenly at age 60 while playing church softball and sometime later his wife Kris gave me a book he used when he was often called upon, as a lay leader in their church, to deliver a companion message to the day’s pastoral sermon. It was a series of very short passages, reflections by famous people.
Now, my father was, as best I could tell, someone for whom regrets, especially near the end of his life, played a significant part. I feel certain he was aware of the dichotomy in his own life … living in the moment… and yet managing feelings of regret.
On one particular page of the book to which I refer, he had written in the margin the following, which though I did not fully appreciate the message, still I took to heart the moment I read it and which I have used as something of a personal philosophy to guide my own life designed to keep me in the moment.
“St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone reportedly asked him what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. ‘I would finish hoeing my garden,’ he replied.”
Today you may experience ups and downs and tomorrow downs and ups. But whatever happens to you or around you or by you or for you… positive or negative or neutral… just go on hoeing your garden and strive to enjoy and appreciate that experience… in the moment.
