A
day off…
I
sit restfully on a dock and let time pass, contentedly watching not much of
anything. A Kingfisher flits across the bay; something in motion flashes on an opposite
shoreline; sunlight mirrors a lava-lamp effect on the rippling water; a
squirrel leaps a gaping maw from a high branch of one hemlock to that of
another; a stationary wolf spider ambles out to sun, or to watch for prey, or
to do whatever it is that wolf spiders do, maybe, like me, just to sit restfully
on a dock and let time pass, contentedly watching not much of anything.
Ten
minutes? Thirty? An hour? Who knows how long I have been resting here? Oxymoronically,
the time passes in no time. I feel fully alive, but still, somehow, sad.
What
is it about the passing of time that makes for something of a sadness? It
matters not that one is having fun, as the saying goes, though that is where
the sensation can seem most acute. Family time, meaningful work time, free
time, day off time, cabin time, friend time, vacation time, sabbath time, up time,
down time: there is a kind of sadness when they’ve ended.
We
long for the seemingly timeless moments, to feel free of duration, to enjoy interludes
when the clock stands still, periods that constitute what author Sheldon
Vanauken envisions as “…the dream of
unpressured time – time to sit on stone walls, time to see beauty, time to
stare as long as sheep and cows.” Such moments sear themselves in our
memories, especially, for me, when they have been shared with a loved one. But
those interludes are too rare, and we are held captive to duration, cognizant, oh so very cognizant, of the passage of
time.
And
yet this cognizance should not be all there is to the story. Again Vanauken: “Awareness of duration, of terminus, spoils now.”
This is often certainly true for me. How frequently I find myself mentally,
inadvertently, even against my will, counting off the vacation days like ticks
off a timer, numbering each day backwards to zero.
Yet,
as God’s creatures, for now, time is merely another dimension in which we must live.
Like space, it simply is. In that regard it’s also not unlike the air we
breathe, or the space we take up as we move: but we don’t sit around decrying
whether or not we’re going to run out of air or the space to get around. So, why time? A thousand generations pass, all
bound by this same dimension, yet somehow we still let it not be simply what it
is.
Back
to the flitting bird, the jumping squirrel, the lounging spider. Animals do not
sense time. They are completely at home in the present in their natural
surroundings. I wish I could do that, live that way. Perhaps this longing for
timelessness is a uniquely human curse. Perhaps, as a result, it also becomes a
proof, or at least an inference, of the existence of eternity. Perhaps, just for
now, timelessness can only belong to God and God alone. Just for now…
~~RGM, From an Earlier Entry
in My Nature Journal
How I relate to this being held captive to duration, cognizant of the passage of time! Perhaps this is one more very lovely thing about children who are young enough to be completely at home in the present. Like you, I long to live that way, and wonder if this could be a piece of the meaning of Jesus' admonition, "Except you become as little children....." Thank you again, Pastor Rick, for your thoughtful contemplation. Your words are a gift to me.
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