Time

An earworm of a Rich Mullins tune is stuck in my head “we’re stuck in time” is right there, not quite hearing it, so not quite sure of the song title and the rest of the lyrics. It’ll come when I’m least thinking about it, some time after this post is published.

Ascension Press Bible in a Year In the Beginning.

In Genesis 1 and the first part of Genesis 2 we read about creation, relationship, days and nights, weeks, work, rest, and other ways of relating to our physical world. Gah I don’t know how to write what I want to write. I’m frustrated with the whole “time is a social construct” as if this is a bad thing, way of looking at time. I get it the way we experience time gives witness to how we, as created beings, try to control everything around us, this seems to stem from God giving us dominion, authority over the created world. I get it too we live in the ever present now, there is only this moment. I get too that we “live” in the past dwelling on things we are unable to fix or change; we live in the future, looking forward upcoming events or worrying about things over which we have no control. In both the living in the past or future we steal from both ourselves and those we are in relationship with of being fully present to them, we also steal from God, or at least try to as we relate our lives to him.

The first experience of hearing that time is a social construct started the whole thinking process. The second time was from an unexpected source and it was in this person expressing the whole notion that solidified that this is at once true, and more accurately an extension of God working and establishing time in the created world. As we read through the first chapters in Genesis we see days and nights established leading up to a full seven days with work and rest figured into this “time frame.” God as Creator doesn’t need time, rather establishes this as a way of allowing us to order the time given us living in Creation.

Over the last six months or so there’s been the increased desire to honor God with using my time well. I have planners that help me in this process, these tools help set the rhythm of my days. I’m aware and working on ordering my days so that both things around the home and things with the quilting work get done, for there is work to do. Using the planners helps me keep commitments, schedule time to get work done and help me to understand what’s realistic with the time given and in accurately estimating how much time is needed to accomplish the tasks. I often underestimate.

Over the last several days I’ve been working on tidying the space in the sewing room to have a beautiful space to look at while I’m filming. The hard part for me is that it’s a cascade of things, when one space needs changing, at least three other spaces need changing. Further this is a newish space for all things quilting so finding where and how things fit is still in the experimental stages. While it’s taking time, and more rearranging that estimated I like the direction it’s going in. I can already function better in the space. One thing that helps is setting a timer to work on this for 45 minutes, then work on that for 45 minutes, thus giving me enough head space to dig into each job and enough variety in the course of my day to accomplish the necessary tasks.

Since starting to write this the fabric and the books have exchanged places, other bits looked at and rearranged, quilts quilted and videoed, and the editing software is open with a couple of clips ready for editing. Also I’m reading Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales and having good discussions with a friend. There is journaling involved, this includes lots of pondering where I am in my faith life in the moment. More to the point where I am in life. There are several things I’m looking for including those things in prayerful meditation God is giving me to consider during the day. Further since starting to write this a new planner arrived, one that suits my needs a bit better and has the added bonus of being faith oriented listing the Saint of the Day and in this year focuses on the Litany of Trust. From the fear of….Deliver me Jesus.

At the bottom of this post there are notes, reminders of those thoughts that were whirring around in my head when starting this post. (They won’t appear by the time I actually publish this) Time is or can be an Idol. Elizabeth Scalia talks a bit about this in Strange Gods. There’s the note about “not wanting to be so rigid I’m inflexible” and my conversation with a friend about my whole day being completely upended yesterday and how annoyed and frustrated I was. How open was I in this moment to where God was moving. And I realized in this that all of this is about the Illusion of Control. All that I can really do in this life is learn to surrender to God, to look for those clues as to where he is leading, prompting, nudging, whispering, holding, protecting. All we really ever have is the eternal now. As I get to the end of all of this there is the deep recognition what while I have to function in time, in relation to all others, that umbrage I took regarding time being a social construct is that moment of idolatry, placing the concepts of time as we know it before the Loving God who formed our days. What started as something of a reactionary post has morphed in a way I didn’t expect. I need to function in time, and give each moment of the scheduling and being over to God. Not just need, want.

Ha! Now that I’ve had this realization that all of this is about the Illusion of Control I am going to go be about my day, spend some time meditating on the mysteries of our Lord as St. Francis de Sales suggests, looking for the spiritual bouquet given by God for the day for a lifetime for this moment.

God bless,
Teri