Time is always short: How do we spend this precious time we are given?

“The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac” by Mary Oliver

1.
Why should I have been surprised?
Hunters walk the forest
without a sound.
The hunter, strapped to his rifle,
the fox on his feet of silk,
the serpent on his empire of muscles—
all move in a stillness,
hungry, careful, intent.
Just as the cancer
entered the forest of my body,
without a sound.

2.
The question is,
what will it be like
after the last day?
Will I float
into the sky
or will I fray
within the earth or a river—
remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
if I couldn’t remember
the sun rising, if I couldn’t
remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
even remember, beloved,
your beloved name.

3.
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
so why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

4.
Late yesterday afternoon, in the heat,
all the fragile blue flowers in bloom
in the shrubs in the yard next door had
tumbled from the shrubs and lay
wrinkled and fading in the grass. But
this morning the shrubs were full of
the blue flowers again. There wasn’t
a single one on the grass. How, I
wondered, did they roll back up to
the branches, that fiercely wanting,
as we all do, just a little more of
life?

A friend sent me a picture of him and his bride on Wednesday. It was a beautiful picture, but a heart-breaking one. It was taken at St Anne’s hospice. His sadly his wife died this morning, Saturday, I saw him just an hour ago.

The other day I received the sad news that my cousin Cheryl is terminal ill with cancer too. She will be going back to be cared for by her family. I will go and see them in the next few days. We never know what is coming in life. We have all received those phone calls throughout life. Ethan has been on my mind much these last few days. I will never forget the phone call that came out of that blue autumn day. We have all received such calls throughout our days no doubt. I will never forget the moment I experienced his death, when it felt like the whole of being was ripped out of me. There have been many ghosts and reminders of him this week. He lived such a short life, a little over six years.

Don’t we all need more time.

Every morning we step out into the world uncertain of what the day will bring. Yes we make our plans and designs and have our own ideas about what will be. Sometimes things work out exactly as we expect, but often they do not. Sometimes they work out far better than we could have dreamed of, but at other times they do not. We cannot predict life and I do not believe that it is already pre-ordained. I believe that the book of life always remains open. I do not believe that God has pre-ordained anything. I do believe in the Lure of Divine Love, but that this is not controlled by some primal centre, but hey I could well be wrong. I do believe that this Love speaks to us in and through life, as well as in and through us. This is why I believe that everything matters. Life feeds us and we feed life. We are all a part of the Great Co-Creation. This is why it matters how we journey on in life. This is why it is so important that we keep on stepping out into the world, on this continuous journey, experience all that life offers to us in all its blessings and curses. Always remembering that we do not journey alone.

Now strange as this may sound a life time’s journey can only be taken in one day. Did you know that the word journey is derived from the Latin word "diarnum" meaning daily portion from which the old French word "jornee" which meant a day’s work or a day's travel, is derived. I love this truth, it makes me smile broadly. We all live one day at a time, this is the beautiful journey of life; beautiful but sometimes heartbreakingly painful.

We all have this day, just 24 little hours of precious time. It matters how we spend this time, this daily portion, this beautiful journey, what we do in a day. I wonder how much your daily portion is worth?

Here’s a little tale that addresses this very question.

With a timid voice and idolizing eyes, the little boy greeted his dad as he returned from work, "Daddy, how much do you earn an hour?"

Greatly surprised, but giving his boy a glaring look, the father said,
"Look, son, not even your mother knows that. Don't bother me now, I'm tired."

"But Daddy, just tell me please! How much do you earn an hour," the boy insisted.

So the dad, finally giving up, replied: "£20 an hour."

"Okay, Daddy? Could you loan me £10?" the boy asked.

Showing his restlessness and positively disturbed, the dad shouted, "So that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right? Go to sleep and don't bother me anymore!"

It was already dark and the dad was thinking over what he said and was feeling guilty. He thought to himself maybe the boy wanted to buy something.

Finally, trying to ease his mind, the dad went to his son's room.
"Are you asleep, son?" asked the dad.

"No, Daddy. Why?" replied the boy, partially asleep.

"Here's the money you asked for earlier," the dad said.

"Thanks, Daddy!" rejoiced the son, while putting his hand under his pillow and removing some money. "Now I have enough!! Now I have £ 20!" the boy said to his dad, who was gazing at his son, confused at what the boy had just said.

And then the son asked his dad.

"Daddy, could you sell me one hour of your time?"

How much is your time worth? We say we need more time, but maybe what we really need is to find better ways to spend our time.

I need more time!!!

Time is a precious commodity, perhaps a priceless one. We get just 24 hours in each day and it is important how we choose to spend this commodity. How are you going to spend your journey, your daily portion?

I love the following piece I found a few years ago.

Imagine if you had a bank that credited your account each morning with £86,000 that carried over no balance from day to day...Allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day, what would you do? Draw out every pound every day, of course, and use it to your advantage! Well, you have such a bank, and its name is TIME! Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balances, it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.

So how are you going to spend your daily portion, how are you going to live your journey?

Time truly is a precious commodity and how we use it maybe our only real freedom; How we live out our journey, our daily portion is our greatest freedom. Now of course we all have commitments, things that we have to do each day. That said we all still have so much time and I wonder how much of it we waste, worrying about the time left or with ill feeling about the time that has already gone and will not come back. How much of our day do we waste on either worry or resentment. Such feelings block us from experiencing the precious joy of the moment and none of us know just exactly how many of those we have left.

I need more time! Really is that true?

Now while each passing moment last as long as the next, it is not always experienced this way. I have noticed this powerfully these last few days. I have been living in thick time, some of it painful and some of joyful, all of it deep in emotion and experience.

I need more time! Really is that true?

Time is peculiar. Time can stop and time can fly by. The passing of time brings with it the experience of aging, if we are offered that privilege, but that same passing of time can also rejuvenate, if we spend it wisely. We can kill time, but in so doing we do not damage it, only ourselves. We can spend time until it runs but, but we can also invest in it, spend it wisely and in so doing receive a rich dividends.

One thing we humans do, whether religious or secular, is mark the passing of time. We say “It’s time for this and it’s time for that.” In so doing we mark a certain day and in so doing we separate what has been and what is yet to come. Our ancient ancestors looked into the night sky and observed that the celestial events above them kept on repeating themselves, but not in exactly the same way, at varying intervals, that today we call a day, or a month, or a year, and so on. Such time is a measured period that extends from one event until it is repeated again. This is linear time, the ancient Greeks called it “Chronos”.

We place such a high value on this kind time because we are given a limited supply of it. We cannot earn more of this kind of time. We mark off and we continue to mark off such time so that we could keep a track of its passing. Each morning, as the sun rises, we begin our journey, our daily portion, we begin a period of time called a day. The moon moves through a moonth or monthly cycle which lasts twenty nine and a half days. It’s the same with the passing spring equinox which follow a cycle of what we call a year, or actually 365 and a quarter days, which is why we have a leap year every fourth year. This is “Chronos” time

There is though another form time that we all experience, a time without measure. Such time is called eternity. Now the ancients believed that this is the time that God inhabits. As Peter wrote in his third letter “A thousand years is as a day to God and one day is as a thousand years.“ The Greeks called such time Kairos”. It cannot be measured in a linear sense and thus we often miss its value.

Kairos time is not limited, through we can indeed alter how we live out our time. We cannot lengthen such time but we can deepen or thicken the experience of this time, or more often than not it just happens to us. Kairos time is qualitative. It is measured by the depth of the moment and not the length how many seconds it lasts. It’s what Blake described as infinity in an hour. In such moments it feels like the whole world takes a breath; in such moments our whole lives can change and yet in terms of measured “chronos” time it lasted no longer than any other second.

I have been experiencing some deeply powerful, thick moments recently, time has felt like it has stood still. It has been deeply beautiful and sometimes painful too, you cannot have one without the other. Of course in reality each moment has been no longer than any other, but some just sink deeper. No matter what the clock keeps on ticking on.

This brings to my heart that wonderful poem by Wendell Berry, that describes the journey (the daily task) or more accurately the spiritual journey which is one of depth rather than distance. This is Kairos time which last no longer but is experienced in a much “thicker” sense. He wrote:

"A Spiritual Journey"

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

by Wendell Berry

I need more time!

You cannot lengthen time, we are finite creatures we humans. This is what makes our lives so precious, so valuable, so meaningful if we would but learn to deepen our time and thicken our experiences. But how do we do this. Well in many ways this is what I try to do each Sunday and in my other activities with the folk I serve, or through these devotions. I try to guide you into ways in which you can live your lives in deeper and more fulfilling ways.

I need more time!

We cannot really lengthen the time we have been given, the “Chronos” time. Well at least not beyond a few extra years. Instead of three score and ten, perhaps the norm is four score and ten now. We can though deepen and thicken this time, there is no limit to “Kairos” time. It does not operate in a linear sense, it has no limit, except our own imaginations and we will never reach the limits of these, well not in our lifetime.

The key it seems is not the length of time we have and or have left but what we do with the time. I invite you to make the most of it. To continue on journeying (joining in the daily task) in the ship of love that is life, to expand the limits of what we think we know, to not be held back by what we think we know. Let’s journey on enjoying ever more thickening time.

We need to stop crying out “I need more time!”

If we make good use of our time, the 86,400 seconds we have today, we will make an impact on every moment that follows into eternity. We have enough time to pause and contemplate the magnificence of life in its glorious ordinariness and we have time to listen to one another, to share deeply, to experience the depth and weight of each moment, the thickness of time.

May you spend your time wisely. The 86.400 seconds that is your daily portion, your beautiful journey.

The video devotion below is based on

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