Through the looking glass
Time, what is it? Is it real or imaginary? Are we created for time or time for us? Does it last forever or only a moment? Is there a past, a future, or only the present? Where does it begin, where does it end? Whatever it is or was or will be, it is the context for human life for one thing we do know is that we are limited by time in this life. We do have a beginning and an end. We are temporal beings and so naturally time is significant to us. Does it matter that in one room the clock says 2:07 and in the next room 2:12 or that when I awake on Monday morning it is already Monday night in Kazakhstan? Does it matter what time it is or is what matters that there is time, time for a life to be lived? A poem written by Thomas J. Carlyle entitled “Our Jeopardy” was published some years ago now in Theology Today, a journal of Princeton University, that still speaks to me about the value of time whether we can ever quite comprehend its ontological mysteries. It goes like this:
It is good to use
best china
treasured dishes
the most genuine goblets
or the oldest lace table cloth
there is a risk of course
every time we use anything
or anyone shares an inmost
mood or moment
or a fragile cup of revelation
but not to touch
not to handle
not employ the available
artifacts of being
a human being
that is the quiet crash
the deadly catastrophe
where nothing
is enjoyed or broken
or spoken or spilled
or stained or mended
where nothing is ever
lived
loved
pored over
laughed over
wept over
lost
or found.
Time is funny. Whether it exists or not, is imaginary or not, is meaningful or not, it cannot be captured, it can only be lived. One more time comes to us to use it. We are given one more time. Whatever it is, it is a gift. Dare we use it? Dare we use the most of our time for God’s sake? Dare we commit ourselves to live fully our time and use our resources to make a difference in this new year not just for ourselves but for our church and for our world, one more time, before it is all gone. The time in which we have our life on earth is by definition, temporary (temporary means ‘of time’) which underscores its value for now, the time we have now is our time. Margaret Farley described commitment as love’s way of being whole when it is not yet whole, love’s way of offering its incapacities as well as its power. No matter what you think of time, this new year is as good a time as any to recommit ourselves to the ministry of Christ in the church we love called Holy Trinity. We can be more and we have been given one more time to be.
