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

the material in this "blogspot"

Time and the Theory of Wellativity

I have ministered to the two congregations I serve for seven years now. I began on 1st of August 2010,  it seems like only yesterday and yet at the same time a life time ago. So much has happened during this time. It has affected me deeply, I trust it has done so with the folk and the communities I serve. I have certainly experienced some deep moments in our time together, what I like to call “thick time”.

Yes we have been together for some seven years now, it has been a wonderful time, a true blessing. As I look back at those seven years I feel I would like to mark this time. I feel I would like to honour all we have shared together, I hope it has added as much depth and value to their lives as it has to mine. I trust it has in some ways expanded their imaginations and fed their spirits and enabled them to give more of themselves to life.

Time is a funny thing. Time can stop and time can fly by. The passing of time brings with it the experience of ageing, 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 out, 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. So this week I marked seven years of journeying together with the people I serve, remembering that journey is from the French word “Jounier” which meant your daily travel, your daily task. Well we’ve spent just over seven times 365 individual daily journeys together, in our fellowship love. This week we marked the day and separated what has been and what is yet to come.

We acknowledge the passing of time by marking it. We have always done so. 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, but 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 it off and we continue to mark off such time to keep track of its passing. Each morning, as the sun rises, we begin our daily journey, 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 of the 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.

There is though another form of time, other than chronos, 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”. Such time cannot be measured in a linear sense and thus we often miss it’s value.

Kairos time is not limited, through it we can indeed alter how we live out our Chronos time. We cannot lengthen such time but we can deepen or thicken the experience of this time. 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.

It brings to my mind that wonderful poem by Wendell Berry when he 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

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 people I serve, I try to guide them into ways in which they can live their lives in deeper and more fulfilling ways.

How do we do this with regards to time? Well the following wonderful piece of wisdom by Marney K Makrodakis explores one way in which this could be achieved. In “The Theory of Wellativity” she writes:

"Since time is relative, and is relative on so many levels, why not consciously control it, by adjusting our inner relativity? Time is changeable and is not an absolute thing, and we can use this to inspiring advantage. After all, time wasn't even standardized until 1884, and obviously life on the planet was able to carry on just fine before then.

"Einstein's theory of relativity is popularly known through the equation E = mc2. In actuality, this equation represents just a portion of the theory of special relativity, basically setting the stage to state that there is equivalence between mass and energy.

"I propose a Theory of Wellativity that looks like this:

F = T + I2

which means:
Fulfillment = Time + Imagination2

"To summarize the equation: to increase wellness in your life, take Time and add to it lots of Imagination, and then you get Fulfillment.

"How does imagination play a role in leading us to fulfillment? Imagination is a powerful conduit for change. Applying the dazzling power of imagination is akin to looking through a kaleidoscope. When we look through a kaleidoscope and focus on a single object, the image magically expands into a dazzling infinity of patterns and colors, instantly changing our capacity to see. And when we connect to the power of imagination, sparkly solutions expand in infinite directions, allowing us to see more. As author and creativity coach Jill Badonsky says, 'The imagination is always on call to transport my spirit to that timeless place of inner peace.'

"The most important changes in my life have, without exception, been primarily fueled by my imagination. Through my imagination, I have attracted an endless number of kaleidoscopic miracles, including bouncing back from mental illness, emerging from suicide attempts, healing physical ailments, attracting my soul mate, designing my ideal work, changing my financial reality, becoming pregnant when doctors said it wasn't possible, losing one hundred pounds, and so much more . . . including completely changing the way I see and experience time.

"As my experience illustrates, imagination is a powerful inner creative act, capable of transforming reality in ways beyond our wildest dreams, including creating the time we need. We can use imagination to control our intention, attention, and awareness; by doing so, we can see the ways in which any given period can be shortened or expanded, deepened or cheapened. Through our imagination, we have an infinite capacity to control our perception of time. Knowing that all time is not equal opens the doorway for us to tap into imagination to make new choices about how we experience time."

...My goodness I relate to this, almost word for word, well except the pregnant bit...

What do you think of this “Theory of Wellativity”. Is imagination a powerful conduit to change? Well it has been in my life. Before any change was possible, before any new beginning was given birth to, I first had to imagine it was possible. Even if others believed it would not be. One of those was becoming a minister, another was over coming physical problems I’ve had all my life, another was being set free from addiction, another was finding and developing a relationship with God, I really didn’t think that was possible and much, much more. I know I’m not alone. It is my imagination that has allowed me to move into unknown territory in my life, to experience the undreamed of realities of existence, to experience what I have come to call “thick 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 life time.

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) to sail the sea of life in the ship of love, 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.

Time to inhabit space

Last Saturday afternoon I was out with friends, it was my day off and we wandered together around Dunham Massey, a place I love. I wasn’t quite myself. I could feel it in the core of me. I was not enjoying this time with friends in such a beautiful space. Something just didn’t feel right, my heart wasn’t in it. Not that it showed in how I was with them, but in the core of me I wasn’t quite myself. I was not connecting with them or the nature in which we walked. In fact if truth be told I could feel myself getting increasingly irritated as time went on. So much so that I was half relieved to get home and be on my own. Things got worse there though and I had an awful night’s sleep. I discovered that night what the problem was. I had obviously picked up some kind of bug and spent the whole night up and down to toilet.

I was not happy when the alarm went off next morning as I had such a busy day ahead. It was not just caused by the lack of sleep, I felt lousy, I felt weak. On top the services I had to lead I had appointments all afternoon too. I could have cancelled, of course I could, but I felt duty bound to continue on. I got through the day and did a decent, job as tough as it was. So many people were kind and loving and something carried me through. Love is such a powerful and gentle force. Human love and kindness and the love of God is comforting and sustaining. It kept me going all day, although I can’t claim to have truly experienced the day. I was not fully present.

That evening I went for a short walk with a friend just around Altrincham. We walked through the deserted town which just a few hours earlier would have been buzzing with activity, just around the corner the bars and eateries were crowded and full of life as people enjoyed the beautiful evening. I was just grateful for loving company, the ground at my feet and air to breathe. I smiled to myself as I thought that peace is always available to us if we allow it to be, if we allow ourselves to occupy the space. It’s amazing what a little bit of quiet time in any space can do for the soul. There is even peace to be found in the centre of town, although only on a Sunday evening these days; we no longer observe Sabbath, Sunday rest, these days. I wonder how often in life we find the time to truly experience the space in which we inhabit.

I went to bed that night, exhausted, feeling delicate, but with a sense that I would feel better in the morning.

I was wrong, very wrong. If anything I felt worse. I ate a good breakfast and thought I just need to get going, I know I’ll go to the gym. That didn’t work. I lasted less than half an hour before I gave in. So I came home showered and ate and thought, I’ll do some work. I’ve got so much to do this week I’ve got to make a start. I’ve not got the time to be ill this week, but I couldn’t work either. I just felt exhausted, I felt utterly bankrupt, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. So I went to sleep. All I could do was rest and sleep and find peace in the silence. I dreamed too which is something I rarely am aware of doing. Wow! They were some wild and wacky dreams.

I did nothing that day and nothing that evening. I spent the next few hours in dreamtime. It was a day and night of rest and eating. Did I feel better the next day? No not really. My stomach still felt very delicate, but again I made myself eat. I also went to my usual meditation and in the silence, shared with others, I began to finally revive and reconnect to life. In that time and space I felt held by that all sustaining love and it nourished me. All I had to do was surrender to it. I then returned home and these words just started flowing out of me. I felt alive once again. Not so much physically but most certainly spiritually, emotionally and mentally.

We all need a time for rest, it is vital to living an active life. We all need time to receive love too. I know I’ve been running near to empty recently. I’ve been told off several times for not taking my day off, let alone the two I’m meant to take. I seem to have an increasingly busy life, which I am grateful for, but I do need to find time to rest, in order to truly inhabit the space in which I live. My body told me that last the weekend, it refused to continue on. It was having none of it and I had to obey. It’s interesting that it was in my stomach, the physical home of both love and fear, that it manifested itself. It always seems to be so with me. I remembered the last time this happened a couple of years ago when I got gastric flu. I also remembered another time over ten years ago when I was coming to terms with an intense and heart-breaking grief, around the time of the first anniversary of Ethan’s death when my body just gave in in the middle of Albert Square in Manchester and I had to stop completely. I could not move. I sat down on a bench, for over an hour and wept. This was the last time I suffered a bout of depression in my life, thank God. I was utterly exhausted and my body just refused to move any more. My body forced me to fully experience the time I found myself in. It forced me to stop trying to run from the space of grief. Thank God I obeyed it, because it was in this time and space of surrender that my journey into ministry began.

Last weekend was a warning to me and one I need to take heed of. You cannot run from time. 

Everyone needs a time of rest, a time to fill themselves with love, a time to take in order to give back to life. This is no doubt why a time of rest is so enshrined within the great religious traditions. We cannot live without rest, for without rest we will not appreciate the lives we have, we will not feel the love present and we will be like zombies, live a slow meaningless living death. In Exodus 31 it is said that if a person works on the day of rest they should be put to death. Now this is a bit strong, extreme beyond reason I know, but if you think about, if you don’t read it literally and instead metaphorically, if we live without a time of rest are we not living as if we were dead? Life quickly becomes meaningless and we live like zombies. This seems like a living hell, a fate worse than death, to me.

According to Jewish teaching the seventh day is a time for rest and refreshment, for even God rested on the seventh day and was “refreshed”. The time of rest is needed in order to love whatever it is we create in our lives. For without a time of rest we will not see what we create as good, we will not love those we share our lives with and the world in which we live and breathe and share our being. Such time allows us to live in the space in which we inhabit.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel claimed that “The Sabbath as a day of rest is not for the purpose of recovering one’s strength and becoming fit for the forthcoming labour. The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life.”

We need to take time to rest, to connect to life. This doesn’t have to be a particular day though. I feel frustrated by having to have Friday’s as mine, which to be honest I rarely take these days. My work and life doesn’t allow for this kind of rigidity. In fact I find that such rigidity ends up destroying the spirit of time. It is so easy to find ourselves becoming slaves to such rigidity and resenting the time as a kind of function. This is the problem of prescribed religion in many ways, it kind of destroys the spirit at the soul of the teaching. What I feel Sabbath is really about is a time for sinking into the heart and soul, a time to let go absolutely of all rigidity. It is often called free time, I see good reason for this.

Why are we so afraid to let go of rigidity?  Why are we so afraid to be set free? So many of us are.

During the early years of the twentieth century Sandor Ferenczi, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, discovered a phenomenon that he described as “Sunday Neurosis”. He noticed that seemingly normal healthy successful people would experience extreme mental and physical distress on the Sabbath. Ferenczi believed that these people, having been deprived of their normal busy routine by Sunday began to panic, as they feared that they would lose their usual self-censoring mechanism and therefore their wild impulses would reign. They felt out of control and this terrified them. Therefore this extreme pain and or mental anguish developed as a way of staving off the anxiety.

I see real wisdom in Ferenczi’s discoveries. I suspect that the fear of stopping is somehow rooted in the fear of our humanity, the fear of our animal heart, the fear of the soul, the fear of the spirit and this is why so many of us live in our heads and become slaves to rules. I’m not just speaking of the religiously inclined here either, actually I suspect that this is more of a symptom of secularism and modernism and the worship of the mind. It is a symptom of functionality of not valuing time and space. Time is sacred I have discovered. Life is not just about what we do but the spirit in which we do it. While you may be able to purchase a lifestyle, you cannot buy a life.

Again in “Sabbath” Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote

“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”

Sabbath is a celebration of life, of love, of our part of the creation. It is a time of liberation and appreciation. Jesus recognised this in the Gospel accounts. He was critical of the way his own tradition was practiced and it’s slavishness to the rules, not because he was opposed to a time of rest of spiritual sustenance, far from it in fact. No he was critical because he witnessed that by slavishly following the rules the pious had lost the spirit and the love at the core of the tradition. Sabbath you see is about Love, the love of life, for it is Sabbath time that allows humanity to bring the spirit of love alive in life. Again as Heschell wrote in the 20th century “The Jewish contribution to the idea of love is the conception of love of the Sabbath, the love of a day, of spirit in the form of time.” In Mark's Gospel (Ch 2) Jesus remarks “‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.” This is the Love that is at the core of Jesus’s teachings, the love of God, the love of life, the love of other and the love of self. I believe that this same spirit is at the core of all the great spiritual teachings, it’s just that at times it gets lost. The spiritual life is as much about the love of time as it is a love of space and place. It’s an appreciation of the sacredness of every moment of time; the love that allows the space in which we find ourselves come alive.

This to me is our religious task, to bring alive the space in which we find ourselves. This is the whole point of Sabbath time

We need Sabbath time. We need to learn to live in the space in which we find ourselves, this a lesson I’ve once again been taught this last week or so. We need to breath in the air all around us, we need to take in life. We need to feel our feet on the ground. We need to allow our senses to awaken to all that is, we need feel the love in our own bellies and those we share our lives with. We need to appreciate the preciousness of this moment and the sacredness of all life. We need to learn to be people of time and not only of place. We need Sabbath time.

Time: A Talking Head Reflection

I haven't got time for this

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?"

Time is a precious commodity, perhaps a priceless one...

“I haven’t got time for this”. It’s a phrase I’ve found myself repeating over and over again, these last few weeks. “I haven’t got time for this”. It began to develop over the Christmas period and intensified as I came towards the end of the year. Now you’d think that this would have come to an end as the new year developed, but it seems to have got worse this last week or so.

If someone were to watch me sat at my desk at the beginning of last week I am sure that they would draw the conclusion that I am some kind of mad man. Yes ok I have had some real problems with technology, I’ve had intermittent internet access and no telephone, which has impinged on my ability to do my work. Last Sunday it really came to a head. I had finished worship and had to be at an interfaith meeting a little later. I had an hour or so in-between and I had emails I needed to reply to as well as a need to publish my latest blog and to post it out there.  It had to be done that day! I was already frustrated because BT had told me they couldn’t repair my broadband problems until Wednesday and so I decided to go to a local cafe with my laptop and work from there. I sat there desperate to get on with it but was again held up by technical problem. I was becoming increasingly frustrated by all of this, it seemed to take forever to get online and when I did it just ran slower and slower. There I sat muttering to myself, “I haven’t get time for this, I haven’t got time for this, I haven’t got time for this”...madness, just utter madness...when I got home from the meeting later I sat down to eat and just began chuckling at myself at the way I’d been that day and that ridiculous line...”I haven’t got time for this”...utter madness

Time is such a precious commodity, we get just 24 hours in each day and it is important how we choose to spend what we are each given. This got me thinking of this peice of wisdom I recently came accross. Again it got me chuckling as I reflected on my recent madness.

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.

Time truly is a precious commodity and how we use it maybe our only real 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 or with crazy statements like, “I haven’t got time for this.” These kind of frustrations just 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 made space over the Christmas period to spend a little time with friends and family, but I think I could have made more. I could have given more of my time, but I do think I used the little time I had well. Two friends, a dear couple, who I have known since I was a teenager shared a 40^th birthday party, it allowed me to catch up with so many folk I had known for oh so many years. It enabled me to bring back memories that I had once forgotten. What is really interesting about many of those memories is that at one time they were sad and painful and yet today they fill me with joy. I re-member so much of my life differently today; I re-bind those thoughts and feelings from a very different perspective today.

I had some other beautiful conversations with familyover Christmas, which will continue as time passes. One blessing that I deeply apprecate these days is that I can spend time with each person I grew up with and just experience that gentle meaningful love that we share. I love listening to them talk about oh so much. Perhaps the greatest gift of my life today is the personal reconciliation I have experienced with all of my family. We have rebound ourselves together and I know that this has brought so much joy and peace to others. This is true religion in my eyes. Remember (re-member) that the word religion comes from religare which means to re-bind together. Every act of reconcilaition is a truly religious act.

The time we have with one another is oh so precious; we never know if the conversation we are having with our loved one will be our last one. I was acutely aware of this as I sat with my grand dad on Christmas day evening. I listened to him and loved him and I let him love me. Not in some special way, just in the ordinary way, the way that really matters.

I love the following by the nineteenth century Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...it speaks of time well spent...

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? …Time is but the stream I go fishing in. Sometimes in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon. I realize what the Orientals mean by contemplation…I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. It seemed to me that I had several more lives to live. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. In proportion as he simplifies his life the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor will poverty be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Now some will say that this is just self indulgence, wasting ones time, but is it? Thoreau doesn’t tell us what he experiences while he sits there in the doorway of his cabin; he does not describe what he saw, what he felt; he just tells us that he was there, he was present in that sacred moment; he tells us that he is paying attention to the world around him – he called this contemplation.

We all have time but it is limited, just 86.400 seconds a day to draw on and it is limited to those 24 hours, you cannot carry even a second over into the next. There may not be a next day. So as time is limited how should we then spend it? Well another of the great transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested the following.

 “To laugh often and love much. To win and hold the respect of intelligent persons, and the affection of little children. To earn the praise of honest critics and to endure, without flinching, the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty always, whether in earth’s creations or men and women’s handiwork.

To have sought for and found the best in others and to have given it oneself. To leave the world better than one found it, whether by nurturing a child or a garden patch, writing a cheery letter, or working to redeem some social condition.

To have played with enthusiasm, laughed with exuberance, and sung with exultation.  To go down to dust and dreams knowing that the world is a little bit better, and that even a single life breathes easier because we have lived well, that is to have succeeded!”

If we make good use of our time, the 86,400 seconds we have each day, we will make an impact on every moment that follows on 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, even if we are in a hurry. The key is to no longer fall for the delusion that “we haven’t got time for this.” It is certainly a lesson I need to re-member. Because the truth is that we do have the time for this and everything else, we just need to pay attention to what is important, to who and what we love and to whatever the task is that has been assigned to us.

I’m going to end this little blog ith a final little story that I recently came across...

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a man on a bench near a playground.  “That’s my son over there,” she said, pointing to a little boy in a red jumper who was gliding down the slide.  “He’s a fine looking boy” the man said. “That’s my daughter on the bike in the white dress.”

Then, looking at his watch, he called to his daughter. “It’s time to go, Melissa?”  Melissa pleaded, “Just five more minutes, Dad. Please? Just five more minutes.”  The man nodded and Melissa continued to ride her bike to her heart’s content. Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his daughter. “Time to go now?”

Again Melissa pleaded, “Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes.”  The man smiled and said, “OK.”  “My, you certainly are a patient father,” the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, “Her older brother Tommy was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with Tommy and now I’d give anything for just five more minutes with him. I’ve vowed not to make the same mistake with Melissa.  She thinks she has five more minutes to ride her bike. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch her play.”

“We have got time for this”...utter madness...if we haven’t then we need to make the time