Of the hundreds of pages written, thousands of pages read, thousands of minutes spent listening and studying, and tens of thousands of dollars my parents and I are still spending, I’m pretty sure I can distill the most valuable thing I learned in my undergraduate career to three words: Be here now.

At the time, as a haughty, first-semester freshman, I remember rolling my eyes.  I was forced to sit through a freshman seminar of sorts with the “honors” kids. We were not the cool kids, and I liked to consider myself other than “them.”  I probably was, as most of them were far more intelligent than I was. I had a lot to learn, I just didn't know it yet.

Back then, the phrase would help me remember to slow down and really live my last and fleeting carefree years. College was more fun than I had imagined: It contained the start of most of my closest friendships, my first love (and subsequent heartbreak), a widening of my world, and a shrinking of my importance in it. I started a long process of learning to listen, to work hard, to try.

I remarked to Daniel recently that this advice is among the only piece I can think of that has always applied, no matter where I find myself.  But not always for the same reason.

When I found myself unexpectedly alone, post-college, overdrawn and unsure of what was next, I cried in my bathtub as those words came whispering back.  Be here now.  Be present in the stillness, the emptiness, the pain.  Listen. Seek. Let the disappointment in, learn from it.

As I’ve grown older, and my life more crowded, this phrase reminds me to use my precious time wisely. That being productive doesn't always look the way it used to. That sometimes reading a stack of library books on the couch is more important than keeping up with the laundry, that going out for milkshakes in our pajamas is more valuable than honoring bed time, that being here through the often monotonous every day of my children’s waning childhoods is more pressing than the career I had and wanted but have chosen to put aside for now.

It reminds me of the importance of taking lengthy phone calls from lifelong friends, of sitting down, slowing down, and looking people in the eye.  It constantly reminds me to put my phone down, to be present for the person in front of me, making sure she knows she is more important than all the other things I could be focused on. It reminds me that I don’t have to fill all of our days, don’t have to always say yes and probably shouldn’t, and that I don’t have to feel bad about any of it.  

Committing to being here means accepting that things will change, but choosing not to be preoccupied with coming change.

Lately, being here now has been solemn. It has meant not focusing on what might be one day, when things are brighter. It has meant settling into the dim light, the silence, the sadness, the loss. Not offering possible redemption stories ahead of their time. It has meant fear, mourning, open weeping, and quiet rebuttals to a chorus of “of course it’s going to be okay.”

Sometimes it means carrying the heavy burden of the sorrow of those suffering around us because we don’t know what else to do.  It means letting all of it take as long as it takes, and feeling every emotion along the way.

Necessarily, mercilessly, life still goes on around us. In our families, in our homes. Being here now doesn’t mean getting stuck, I don’t think. For me, it meant pretending to care about putting up our Christmas tree, too early, because it made my husband happy. It meant, as Jen Hatmaker so eloquently put it, “mothering with my hands” when my heart wasn’t in it. It means showing up for our loved ones to the best of our ability, even if it's not as good as normal, even as we allow our souls to ache, to heal. It means recognizing the light wherever we can find it. And in time, it will mean allowing our hearts to feel happiness.

Being fully present, "being still and knowing"—all the time—may be the lesson of my life.  The hardest one, the one I never really master.  I think of it every day.  I never would have believed something so simple would take so much consistent effort.  But I don’t think there’s another way. 

We can’t wish away the pain, the horror, the uncertainty, the doubt or the fear without missing out on the joy. And there’s too much of the former for us to miss even one second of the joy.

When I heard about the massacre, I was running errands with my precious, if impatient cargo. My sister called, my brother and husband texted with the news. I couldn’t listen, couldn’t process, couldn’t hear. I led my children through the store, the promise of their choice of cookie dangling just in front of our fire truck cart. And when that didn’t work, I dangled my face in front of said cart, tersely whispering reminders/threats about the cookies.

We wound our way through the bakery, where they both selected politically correct “Gingerbread People,” we paid, they continued arguing, and we left. They received their Gingerbread People they did not earn, along with a lecture about grace. But I did not lose my patience. I did not long to be elsewhere. Today I was painfully aware of the blessing of my children, whatever their mood, no matter their behavior, regardless of how mundane our day may be.

Once home, they snuggled on the couch while I put things away and prepared lunch.  Tummies full, they settled into their beds for rest. Or at least to pretend to (I can still hear feet stomping around upstairs).

After tighter hugs and more ‘I love yous’ than usual, I could finally read the news, watch the reaction, process the horror. And since then, I have done nothing else.  I braced myself against my kitchen counter and heaved sorrow too deep to be on behalf of strangers.  Because this pain envelopes us all. This shame belongs to all of us. The disbelief, the unspeakable grief, the unimaginable pain and anger weigh on each of us.

I can’t look at my precious children without fear, without gratitude, and without intense anger that any person, one of God’s children, could do such a thing.  And, if I’m honest, I can’t think of any of it without outrage that God would allow it.  I can’t understand it; I can’t justify it, and I can’t pretend to have faith strong enough to explain it away.  I can run to my Jesus, and pray in moans—without words—but it is without making any attempt to understand how or why this could happen.

I know in the coming days we will be brought together in mourning, then as quickly driven apart by politics.

Shame on us.

Let us remember these beloved children, their brokenhearted parents, and their classmates, viciously robbed of their innocence.  Let us not shy away from difficult, complicated conversations, but may we handle them with grace. Let us rise above our right to opinions and being right. Let us resolve that we will do everything in our power not to let untreated mental illness or outdated gun laws or ideological divides or hatred win. Let us agree that love wins, and work diligently to figure out the details.

Because it just has to. Because this just can’t go on.