A Southward Tide

“For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side and the future on another.” (Virginia Woolf, Orlando)

At a lower school gathering, our discussion turned the media blitzed world of pervasive gun violence and pedophilia. Over coffee, we plotted to protect, insulate, even isolate our children from this cruel new decade. And yet, is this era worse than before? What of mangled vets returning from Vietnam? What about Emmet Till? And Jerry Lee Lewis and his 14 year old bride? What about age old alcoholism and The Valley of the Dolls? The Cold War?  Studio 54? The present is myopic; it accumulates no knowledge beyond our own existence. We are like blind moles digging ourselves a circular tunnel that fills in behind us.

St. Augustine questions, “How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.” (The Confessions, Book XI). Accordingly, the present is fluid, unmeasurable, indivisible, time flowing from future to present to past. Change is the only constant, but isn’t the present immutable, always being, always the same?  Is the present the moment where all of life and experience is born and dies simultaneously? If so, as Augustine ponders, does the future or past even exist?