Something I’ve been thinking about the past couple of days is the concept and reality of time. How time is something that I can and cannot quite understand. I’ve been here now for nearly twenty-seven years. They have gone so quickly. Anyways…back to time.
Right now, the moment that I’m experiencing, sitting here in the library is leaving. This moment, the only moment that I’ve taken a second to acknowledge today is heading off. It’s heading off into a place we like (or don’t like) to call the “past.” The past is simply a collection of present moments that have ceased to exist because other moments came in and replaced them. (Have you ever felt “replaced?”) At least physically speaking. That is, sometimes our minds don’t allow us to move beyond these moments in the past, so we keep them with us right now, in the present, and hope to take them with us into the future…
About these newer moments that are bound and determined to move in. We call them the “future.” Just like all of the Londoners who are boarding the tube right now, to go to another destination, so are these moments. They are these little increments that are sailing off. What is so strange about the past moments or the future moments is that they are both unchangeable. I cannot go back to where I was one minute ago (at 2.36 pm) in this library and start over. I can’t get into the future, even two hours from now, when I hope to be on the soccer field. Neither of these periods can be changed.
So the past is a collection of present moments that have been invaded by the future moments. How strange.
In the present I can think of the past. Some of these moments I love to remember. Other moments, I wish they never happened. Conversations. Places. Experiences. Thoughts. Expressions. Some have been amazing and others, quite horrible. And this is not only me, but everyone in the world who is capable of using their memory has the very same experience. Not that they experienced the world in the way that I did, but they did experience the world and therefore some of their experiences merit the very same characteristics in which I merited as well (happy, sad, exciting, grateful, etc.).
So, what will I do with the present? It is about to slip away into this sealed vault that has no code that I may try to unlock. I cannot get this moment back. So, how do I use this moment to ascribe glory to someone greater than myself? I must ascribe glory to someone greater than myself because I couldn’t “create” this moment. I just happened to come into it. Since I am in it, I am grateful. I can honestly say that I am not responsible for making what I call “today.” I am just here. Therefore, somebody deserves a “thank you very much, kind sir. Without your good work, I wouldn’t have a ‘today.’”
Therefore, since I can’t create time or redeem time, I must be absorbed into the one who does. For he can make the most of “my time.”
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In the book "Sabbath" by Abraham Joshua Heschel, he talks a lot about time. He states, "It is impossible for man to shirk the problem of time. The more we think then we realize: we cannot conquer time through space. We can only master time in time. The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. In a religious experience, for example, it is not a thing that imposes itself on man but a spiritual presence. What is retained in the soul is the moment of insight rather than the place where the act came to pass. A moment of insight is a fortune, transporting us beyond the confines of measured time. Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time."
When God created the world the first thing he made holy was time. "and God blessed the seventh DAY and made it HOLY." Heschel goes on to write, "This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that, after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place--a holy mountain or a holy spring--whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is HOLINESS IN TIME, which comes first."
In the world we live in where it is fast paced and an endless list of chores, deadlines, and meetings, we lose sight of the holiness of time. But as a Christian, embracing my Jewish roots, it becomes clear that the Bible in its entirety teaches us that we need to be attached, shoulder to shoulder, with holiness in time. There are no two hours alike, nor minutes alike. Each hour, every minute is different, unique, "and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious." We did not create time, we just live in it. And each day comes with its own holiness. Therefore we do not just enter a day, or an hour, or a minute, but we enter an atmosphere. An atmosphere that embodies us--covers us, with the presence of God.
Since we did not create time, but merely live in it, and the one who did create time sanctified it as holy, we should therefore live as ones who are holy, and exclaim, “thank you very much, kind sir. Without your good work, I wouldn’t have a ‘today.’”
Scott Rawlings
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