Wednesday March 31, 2010E
As time goes by…
By Jim Taylor
Time flies by so fast. Just yesterday, it seems, we had Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday, St. Patrick’s Day, then Palm Sunday… During this few weeks, the Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i and Zoroastrian faiths squeezed in their New Years celebrations… And then here come Holy Week and Passover, Good Friday and Easter — like a runaway train bearing down on a hapless victim strapped to the tracks…
My friend Ralph Milton theorizes that this feeling of living in a fast-forward world is a natural consequence of aging.
When you’re just two years old, he reasons, a year is half of your total life experience. Waiting a year for a new bicycle seems like an eternity. But when you’re 70, a year is only one-seventieth of your life.
No wonder time seems to go quicker.
Of course, it only seems quicker. Scientists who maintain the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, would insist that time is a constant. Time can vary only if the caesium-133 atom alters its rate of vibration – and as far as they can tell, caesium-133 atoms have vibrated at exactly the same rate since they were created nanoseconds after the Big Bang, 14 billion years ago.
Which begs another question – how long were seconds before there were caesium atoms to calculate them by?
Two kinds of time
But even without that kind of precision, it’s obvious that we all have exactly the same 24 hours, 86400 seconds, per day.
The question is not whether we have that time, but what we do with it.
When I was younger, I filled every moment with activity. I hated to waste a second. At the other end of life, in my father’s final months, he could spend most of a day doing nothing and barely recognize that a day had passed. Time became meaningless.
Maybe there are two kinds of time – objective and subjective. Objective can be measured; subjective can only be felt. Time can seem to stand still in your lover’s arms, or when you’re waiting outside the principal’s office. It can race when you write exams, or you’re late for a job interview.
A friend was riding his bicycle along a city street, blissfully unaware of time at all, when the front wheel jammed in a sewer grate. As he vaulted over the handlebars, he recalls, he had time to marvel at the colours of the lichens growing on the concrete sidewalk – just before he ran into them with his face.
Beyond the box
Many people are sceptical about the claims of mystics, of all faiths, that meditation can slow their heart rate, their respiration, their digestion… Maybe mystics experience time differently.
At Easter, Christians around the world affirm, Jesus Christ “descended to the dead; the third day he rose again…”
Do the dead still experience time? How did he know when the third day was dawning? Or was his time in the tomb a momentary blank, a blink, a blip?
And how did he experience time after his resurrection? When time is no more, what happens to it?
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message. =====================================
Your Turn
There has been such a flood of mail from former subscribers to Ralph Milton’s Rumors, regretting its demise but wanting to continue with Soft Edges, that I’m rather glad there were only two letters about last week’s column on this being a season for apologies.
Beth Robey Hyde didn’t think the column went far enough: “What you say about apologies is good, but some of us get tired of hearing those expressions of regret because they show us how pervasive is the tendency to justify our self-centered actions. How about some words about how we hold ourselves and one another accountable? Specifically on the relationship between forgiveness and accountability.”
And Suzanne Edgar felt that some do apologies more sincerely than others: “Apologies can so often be manipulation which is consciously, or unconsciously, intended to generate sympathy, and not change. The United Church is right out front, though, in trying to live its words, thus making them come alive in the tradition of the Word.”
A word to the new subscribers: I welcome your letters. I try to print excerpts from most letters – I assume that if you write me, you intend your thoughts to be shared with other readers. So if you have something to say in confidence, or if you’re sending along sensitive material that should be kept private, please say so when you write. I will, occasionally, withhold a writer’s name when I think some story needs to be read more widely but might embarrass the writer if identified.
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About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary (1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
- Two Worlds in One (1985, JT only)
- Last Chance (1989, JT only)
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists, (1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
- Surviving Death (1993, JT only)
- Everyday Psalms (1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
- Everyday Parables (1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
- Letters to Stephen (1996, WLB, $17.95)
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice (1997, WLB, $19.95)
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent (1999, WLB, $19.95)
- John for Beginners (2001, WLB, $11.95)
- Spirituality of Pets (2006, WLB, $39)
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TECHNICAL STUFF
To comment on something, in these columns, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the addresses above. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@quixotic.ca.
You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Sunday, called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justic issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
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PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Wayne Irwin’s “Model T Websites.” a simple (and cheap) seven-page website for congregations who want to develop a web presence
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about small town attitudes and bumbling bureaucrats are not particularly religious, but good fun anyway; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
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