Enjoying the Moment

Last October Brenda, my brother Jon, his wife Beth and I went to Atlanta to see U2 in concert. It was the first time for each of us to see them. There are only a few bands or artists that I want to see live in my lifetime and U2 was one of them. They are truly of my generation as Bono was born in 1960 just like me. Edge is the same age as my brother Jon, born in 1961.

I went to Best Buy last week to get the Blu-ray of the Los Angeles show from the 360 Tour that we attended (unfortunately, our show wasn't on the disc). In the behind-the-scenes section of the DVD, a tech person who helped develop the unusual alien-like staging commented that in life most of us spend more time thinking about the future and the past than the present. He went on to say that concerts force us to live in the present. I agree. The beauty of entertainment is that it helps to suspend our logical mind and allows our imaginations to come out and play. Isn't it interesting that we can be looking at a movie screen, a stage, or a television and be transported past the reality that we are looking at reflected light and be swallowed whole into the drama or performance? We become less aware of ourselves and dissolve into the story or the music. To me that's enjoying the moment. It is something that we don't get enough of in our busy lives.

Bono sings a song on the DVD from the All That You Can't Leave Behind CD called Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of. The chorus says:

Don't say that later will be better now you're stuck in a moment
and you can't get out of it

My prayer is that I might learn to enjoy the "now" in my life. I can't live in the delusion that tomorrow might be better. I don't own tomorrow...but, I do have this moment. Brenda is here with me-- we are stretched out, watching the U2 Blu-ray on our HDTV and the sound is phenomenal. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but right here, right now. There's no better place to live than in the present.