Time flies

Luke 12:13-21

The last Sunday in July was always bittersweet as a child. Instead of Bible School, my church held Day Camp, a three week long extravaganza set up like half a school day--study (Bible), art, PE, music, and snack time--run by an indefatigable fountain of energy, Miss Nell Shull (who is still at it some forty years later as a friend's Facebook photos revealed). The last Sunday in July meant it was over. If it was over, then summer was pretty much kaput, too. Just a few weeks and all us children would be slammed back at our desks, readin', writin', and doing 'rithmetic in school. Suddenly, the endless days of ease were zipping past too fast to really use for much of anything.

Little did I realize how much faster would time fly as I got older. Now, whole years go by like those old summers. Shoot--whole DECADES fly by.

Why is that? Why does the addition of years make time speed up?

Oh, heck--to follow the Quantum engineers, time is an illusion anyway. It is a mythical construct that we impose on the cosmos in an attempt to render it orderly (I realize I probably just fired up the whole math and physics departments at GRU, but maybe that will make the week more interesting for them).

But even such a sidestep does not get away from the real issue--time is going by too fast for me to keep up. My children are functioning adults who do not need me in the same ways they once did when I took them on my lap to read them bedtime stories or sat with them in the pediatrician's office with a sore throat. I cannot run as fast as I used to and my bones ache afterward--not injured, just old. My parents are entering the latter chapters of their existence, just as my grandparents did thirty years ago. You get used to something, and then it shifts beneath you. You look forward to something, then you wake up remembering what it was like, seemingly having missed its actual experience.

Linus and Charlie Brown had a conversation that rang so true. Linus wondered which was more important--to focus on today, or to focus on getting ready for tomorrow. Charlie Brown opined, "No, that's giving up, I'm still hoping yesterday will get better!"

I can relate to poor old Mr. Brown. A day goes by and I am not ready to let go of it.

Yet, Linus is right. Planning for tomorrow can be very wise, but it is also vitally important to stay here and now. Today is the only day any of us can actually have. It is the only time wherein we can actually do or be anything. Awareness of each passing moment allows us to be in each passing moment fully present. Maybe then we can use it well enough that tomorrow won't be quite so frightful. Yesterday is done. It cannot be redone, relived, and the truth is that it is probably better that we can't do that. I know Bill Murray had a hit movie reliving February 2 perpetually ("Groundhog Day"), but in the end, would we really get anywhere stuck in the same day? Even his character comes to use the same as if it were a new day each and every time it repeated, thus staying, rather ironically, in today.
We live in time because we know we are finite. We have a limited set of mornings, noons, and nights. We do not know how many we will have, but we do know there will be a beginning and an end. The further truth is that none of us write our own prologue or epilogue, either. We have the narrative of each day, spinning into a set of chapters we mark either by decades, years, months, or days. The conclusion may well come before we are ready.

I do not mention that last point to be morbid, but rather as a way to engage in the here and now. Jesus told a parable about a wealthy farmer who built barns against tomorrow to store up his wealth, but death came before he was able to use any of it, so Jesus counsels, use today well (Lk. 12:13-2.

Use today well.

Spend time with another person, fully engaged in the interaction. Spend time in the world, noting its wonder and miracle. Spend time praying, opening yourself to God and feeling God open himself to you. Be in this day so that it is full, complete, and an experience of love.

Then time won't really matter. It will be full.