Time Passing Me or Me Passing the Time?

Honestly, I have never admitted that I have lived by the clock until recently.  In fact, over the years I have teased Bettyann endlessly about living by lists and schedules, all the time proportion the values of living spontaneously, vicariously and moment to moment.  While on this year’s Lenten journey I am aware that with the sounding of the alarm I am off, watching the minutes slip by through spiritual exercises, physical exercise, meal exercises, and professional exercises.  Time-sensitive deadlines do drive more of my days than not.  I have appointments and meetings, I eat at a certain time, and the day ends by a certain time, usually sitting in my recliner falling asleep.  I even watch the clock when glue is setting up or conscientious as to the proper time of applying the second coat of finish to a wood project.  Bound to my and other’s timepieces; it often seems my every moment is synchronized and controlled.  Ironically, as I am writing these line, I’m listening to an unsolicited song of fifty decades ago, entitled: Good Night Sweetheart.  I captured a smile at the phrase. “good night, good night sweetheart, it’s time to go.”

In contrast to the "objective" measures of time marking seconds, minutes, and hours, I’ve learned there is also a "subjective" experience of time being "fast or slow."  Growing older I describe my experience of time as passing by more and more quickly.  I feel my “away” time as short-lived, while my “work” time plods slowly by—and yet both are marked by the same objective measurements of time.  How is it that my subjective experience of time is so different from what my watch and clocks objectively mark out for me, second by second, hour by hour?

This question of my subjective experience of time is one that the ancient Greek philosophers and early Christian fathers pondered and bequeathed to us many philosophical perplexities.  My reading of Saint Augustine, (still spend “can’t sleep hours reading Confessions) for example, wrestled with the fleeting character of human temporal experience.  He says, no sooner do we apprehend the present than it has receded into the past.  He wrote, "We cannot rightly say what time is, except by reason of its impending state of not-being."

A British theologian, Colin Gunton is cited in John Polkinghorne’s , Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion that regardless of my perceptual and philosophical difficulties with understanding the nature of time, what seems most important for my life is the significance of events that happen in time, moment by moment, hour by hour, and day by day.  Seeking to reclaim this emphasis, theologians have tried to understand the nature of time by what takes place in a narrative of unfolding events.  I leave digging deeper to the young theologians here to only say these theological discussions involve God's engagement with time.  Is God a wholly temporal being, outside of time and history?  Or is God genuinely engaged with time and revealed through an unfolding story of historical disclosure?  The Bible seems to present a God who progressively reveals the divine plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, what is called salvation history.  As I say, my age and mind leaves such questions not on the definitive level but one of mystery and defers to the youthful vigor of mind.

For me, especially during this time, God's decisive revelatory action in time has appeared in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I see God choosing to enter a particular time as a human being to live life among the time-bound.

The significance of those time-bound events continues into my time, and eternity.  And through the unfolding of my final time span , my desire is to grow in my understanding of who God is and what God has done through Jesus, the Messiah.  Indeed, as Jesus spoke with his disciples, he suggests that there would be more to learn and more to reveal through the work of the Holy Spirit: "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears he will speak; and he will disclose to you what is to come" (John 16:12-13).

I’m convinced that the ongoing work of the Spirit in my time is this disclosure through the events of my life.  Sometimes, I will apprehend the significance of those events in the present time.  Other times, it is only through the lens of hindsight as events recede into times past that I might understand God's action.  While time might moves quickly for me at this season of life; while minutes and seconds and hours are filled with whatever, I pray I shall never forget that God entered time to enact the new creation in Christ's resurrection.  As I grow in my understanding of that timeless act, I also pray that the events of my temporal live acts as a sign-marker for eternity.  And while I shall often see the significance of my time-bound events "through a mirror darkly," their full significance will be seen in the future when "the divine purposes will finally and completely be fulfilled in a consummation in which God is 'all in all'" (1 Corinthians 15:28).