CIRCLES OF TIME

 

MAYAN CALENDAR, ROCK PETROGLYPH & APPLE ICON

I stumbled across this very apt definition of a circle of time long ago that “A circle is the reflection of eternity which has no beginning and no end.”  Consequently, ancient petroglyphs left etched in deserts and on all manner of rocks have survived over time indicating that mankind has related to circular concepts ever since our beginning.  They've been found in a multitude of burial mounds, possibly symbolizing the immortality of the spirit.  Even the ancient Mayans created circular long count calendars.  I mention this because after upgrading my iPhone recently, I discovered that it was necessary to unpair my previous iPhone from my electronic watch before it could be paired with my new one.  And somewhere in the process, I somehow managed to lock up the watch before I had finished the transition.

After spending too much time for even a retired person, I relinquished and called Apple’s Support line this morning.  Thankfully, the young woman that took my call was not only knowledgeable, but patient with my generation.  We had an amiable conversation as she walked me through a series of steps which I would have never maneuvered on my own.  As we neared our final destination to releasing the shackles on my iWatch, a wheel miraculously appeared on the screen and began a slow progression of turning on the wheel’s outer lights. The system was illuminating instructions being issued and completed to restore time back into my unstructured life.

 The circle was reminiscent of the Settings icon that Apple uses and the outer lights on the circle were slowly moving to complete this circle of time.  I’ve always had a fascination with circles and the 1972 release of the Harry Chapin song “Circle” immediately came to mind.  My technical support person had tapped into my iPhone for the fix with my permission and I mentioned the animated circle on my watch reminded me of Harry Chapin’s lyrics that

“All my life’s a circle,

Sunrise and sundown,

Season’s spinning round again,

the years keep rollin’ by.”

There was a long pause on the other end and my smart, young, support analyst remarked that she didn’t know that song or Harry Chapin.  I did some quick math in my senior brain and surmised that the song was released 50 years ago.  So, I suggested she Google the title later just as the long count circle of time was completed.  My watch sprang to life and we parted amicably as I promised to give her a great rating on the follow up survey.    

The annual seasons move from spring to summer to fall to winter as we complete one more trip around the sun and add one more candle to our birthday cake. We’re born dependent, experience childhood, grow to independent adulthood, then ease into old age and begin to circle back. Generation follows generation, one season follows another, and the years fly swiftly by, filled with happiness and tears. Only time will tell if it was time well spent.

THE FLEETING PASSAGE OF TIME AND LIFE

WINTER BUFFALO BREATH

Kenny Chesney has a great country song titled “Don’t Blink” about the fleeting passage of time.  Of course, it does seem to fly by faster when we’re enjoying ourselves instead of going to the dentist where I’m headed shortly.  If you Google “fleeting time” you will find a plethora of quotes on the subject.  And those observations cast a wide net over time and humanity.  You have to believe that every human being that ever drew a breath on this planet has easily experienced fleeting time, especially since modern man invented the clock.  But even earlier in time man watched the years, seasons and days slip by without ceasing. 

Only our creator has been recognized as being timeless, while we mortal beings with frontal lobes understand that our beginnings have endings that arrive all too soon.  Our pets wake up each morning living constantly in the present moment without the concern for endings.  We could all take that lesson from them, understanding that life does have a stop date, but with the promise of another spiritual life.

I ran across a saying attributed to a native American, Chief Crowfoot, to illustrate the fleeting aspect of life:

“What is life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow that runs across the grass,

And loses itself in the sunset.”

We need to make peace with the passing of time and embrace each waking moment we have without knowing exactly how much sand is left in the hourglass.  Using our time wisely and intentionally also includes wasting some of it to recharge and refresh.  If we can learn from the past and plan for the future, our present moments can be filled with gratitude, fearless hope, healthy relationships and new possibilities.  

 

THE OBSERVER EFFECT

 

I recently read a review of a new best-selling fictional book simply titled OBSERVER.  It caught my attention because I remembered reading about a scientific experiment result in 1998 that was completely unexpected when the researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science encountered the Observer Effect.  They were conducting a double split fork experiment with electrons at the subatomic level beamed at the fork.  In short, the particles behaved like waves, but when a conscious, quantum observer was present, they behaved like particles.  The researchers were forced to conclude that the mere act of observation affected the outcome which has raised all sorts of speculation.  Robert Lanza’s new novel explores the notion that time, space and even reality all ultimately depend upon us, the observers.

Consciousness can be defined as being mindful or aware of oneself as a thinking, feeling being.  We realize with awe the miracle of a body that is informed by this extraordinary thing we call life that we take for granted almost every day.  The fateful day we realize this eternal truth is the beginning of a lifelong spiritual journey.

God is a conscious spiritual being and we are conscious mortal beings.  We were created in his image, so we can expect parallels in our existence.  His being occupies the universe like our consciousness occupies our body.  By liberating the spaces in our lives and minds that are filled with clutter and chatter, we allow the presence of God to more easily occupy that space!

If two particles are entangled and if you observe one of them, then the other is affected even if they’re far apart.  That communication is instantaneous, suggesting there is no space between them and no time influencing their behavior.  Aldous Huxley in his book, The Doors of Perception” theorizes that our brain possibly acts as a mental filter to help us survive on this planet.  We’re only capable of perceiving the material world around us versus the infinite sea of consciousness

We only consciously know the information that our five senses perceive.  However, consciousness does not simply observe the universe, we create it collectively.  Even though a table is mostly composed of empty space at the subatomic level, we collectively consider it as a solid at the macro-level.  The particles of atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons that revolve in extremely vast regions of empty space.  Man has now determined that there are no solid objects at the subatomic level.   A subatomic particle is a set of relationships that reach out and interconnect, not with objects, but with other interconnections.  Light travels in waves and as particles (photons) at the speed of light.  The photons collide with the air, in a cosmic dance of continuous creation and destruction, a ceaseless flow of energy going through a multiplicity of patterns.  The waves are abstract patterns of probabilities or relationships.   At the subatomic level there is a continual exchange of matter and energy between us and everything around us.  We're all part of one inseparable web of relationships.  

  J. P. Moreland reasons that, “Consciousness cannot be reduced merely to the physical brain.  Our consciousness came from a greater consciousness.  You see, the Christian worldview begins with thought and feeling and desire and choice.  That is, God is conscious.  God has thoughts.  He has beliefs, he has desires, he has awareness, he’s alive, he acts with a purpose.  We start there and because we start with the mind of God, we don’t have a problem explaining the origin of our mind.  …he’s invisible because that’s the way conscious beings are.  I have no inclination to doubt that this very room is teeming with the very presence of God.”

Jill Bolte Taylor writing in My Stroke of Insight perceived life through the restricted lens of only her right brain after a stroke incapacitated her left hemisphere.  She observed that her self-concept was no longer a solid with boundaries, but a fluid.  Operating without the constant "brain chatter" from her left hemisphere left her feeling one with the universe.  Mystics and serious practitioners can also reach that ultimate present moment state of nirvana. 

Taylor writes, “The innate differences we each experience...to stimulation contributes greatly to how we perceive the world…When I lost my left hemisphere and its language centers, I also lost the clock that would break my moments into consecutive brief instances.  Instead of having my moments prematurely stunted, they became open-ended, and I felt no rush to do anything. 

My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me.  I understood that at the most elementary level, I am a fluid.  Of course, I am a fluid!  Everything around us, about us, among us, within us, and between us is made up of atoms and molecules vibrating in space. 

My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others.  Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow.  I was no longer isolated and alone.  My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea… Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us, and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry.  Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you—regardless of where we are.

One of the many conclusions in the book refers back to the famous two-slit experiment which asks the question, “How can a particle ‘out there’ change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not?  The answer is simple—reality is a process that involves our consciousness.”

MOMENTS IN TIME

 

Heaven and Earth

Time is a creation of human beings marking their passage with a timeless creator. 

Humans have divided one revolution of the earth and one trip around the sun to create time.

Our mind is constrained by space and time to create our experience of reality.

The moments between “Have a nice day” and “Good night moon” define a life. 

We need to spend these moments wisely as our time accelerates as it draws to a close. 

This mortal bodily life is merely a transition to an eternal spirit life. 

Seek solitude and take time to be alone without experiencing loneliness.

Take the path less traveled and see life as an endless adventure as you follow your bliss.

Appreciate the tenaciousness of your ancestral DNA, as the frost cannot reach deep roots.

Choose a life partner that makes you feel alive and stands with you against the world.

Support your life partner with compliments and dreams for the future.

To change your present life, invest in your life skills that prompts others to bid for them.

Always remember, only you can be a force for your time.  So pay attention to the dynamics.

Experience life to the fullest and remember that not all who wander are lost.

Only one divine man walked the earth in perfection, so understand and respect others.

 

Henry van Dyke has written:

“Time is

Too slow for those who wait,

Too swift for those who fear,

Too long for those who grieve,

Too short for those who rejoice;

But for those who love,

Time is not.”

 

And Ralph Waldo Emerson councils:

“Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

LIFE SLICED AND DICED

Tick-Tock Alarm Clock

For most of us folks that work for a living, life has to have structure for survival.  We need to wake up at a certain time each morning, arrive at work at a certain time, go to lunch at a certain time, go home at a certain time and retire at a certain time so that we have an adequate amount of sleep time to be rested enough to repeat these times the following day.  The work day is sliced and diced according to meetings, deadlines, school bells, etc.  I have to believe that our ancestors probably lived as the creatures they hunted for survival with the rising and setting of the sun every day after day, after day, after day.  There was no need for clocks or calendars when every day simply revolved around survival for that day, after day, after day.

We still struggle for survival, but it’s not on such a short lease in modern culture for most of us.  We generally have free time for weekends, holidays, vacations and even retirement if we make it that far to the finish line.  It sometimes makes one wonder which period of human evolution was the least stressful?  Calendars and Day Planners dictate our day’s activities while the ubiquitous clocks in our lives slice and dice the days into segments of deadlines with stop and go demands on our life hours within the hourglasses of our brief time on the planet.

Peter Pan is a fictional boy who refuses to grow up and travels to Neverland where there are many suns and moons which makes telling time very difficult.  One way to tell time there is to find the iconic crocodile Tick-Tock who accidently swallowed an alarm clock and then wait until it strikes the hour.  Every time Captain Hook hears a clock ticking, he realizes that time is about to devour him!  But there are some who believe time is irrelevant in Neverland and children never grow up there.  Time is actually a human construct, so that we’re never late for anything, but it can also render us slaves to it.

It's admittedly difficult to actually stop the Merry-Go-Round of life and jump off long enough to indulge ourselves with some much-needed downtime to recharge and refuel, but we must for our own sanity and that of those around us.  And we must remain ever vigilant and be aware of the threat of the relentless man-made life structures such as calendars and clocks that slice and dice our lives in the Veg-O-Matic hourglass of life so that we’re never made whole again.

 

SUFFERING

CASTAWAY

In the opening trailer to the Tom Hanks movie, Castaway, he is training a crew of FedEx employees in Russia on the critical importance of “We live or die by the clock!”  Time is the critical, common enemy at FedEx, but this human construct drives most industrial nations as well, no matter what your occupation.

After his FedEx plane crashed in the ocean during a tropical storm, the castaway endured countless days of using his wits to survive on a deserted island.  There are no clocks or calendars to mark the time when someone is suffering many hardships and fighting for their life. 

Pastor Ray Firestone was the minister in Kansas that married Karen and I in 1968.  His wife was killed at a railroad crossing and he came out of retirement to assist Adam Hamilton as Church of the Resurrection grew to today’s 20,000 membership with five satellite locations.  It’s not only important to embrace a spiritual faith in this life, but to also question it.  One of the most asked is “How can a loving God allow all the suffering in the world and what is he doing about it?”  One answer is that he created you and me.  Adam recently shared sage thoughts that Pastor Firestone passed along regarding suffering in this life:

“Suffering is not God’s desire for us, but it occurs in the process of life. Suffering is not given to teach us something, but through it we may learn. Suffering is not given to teach others something, but through it they may learn. Suffering is not given to punish us, but sometimes it is the consequence of our sin or poor judgment. Suffering does not occur because our faith is weak, but through it our faith may be strengthened. God does not depend on human suffering to achieve his purposes, but sometimes through suffering his purposes are achieved. Suffering can either destroy us, or it can add meaning to our life.”

Adam was reminded of Jesus’ words, “’In this world you will have trouble…but take heart! I have overcome the world’.  Our faith compels us not to throw up our hands and give up, but to roll up our sleeves and get to work embodying love and acting as instruments of healing and hope.” 

AS WE GROW OLDER HAIKU

Aging Well and Remembering

As we grow older,

Aging well is the answer,

Live in the moment.

 

As we grow older,

We embrace eternal truths,

Life is difficult.

 

As we grow older,

Exercise body and brain,

And age gracefully.

 

As we grow older,

Make time a priority,

And spend it wisely.

 

As we grow older,

Worldly things are meaningless,

But not love that’s shared.

 

As we grow older,

Home is no longer a place,

But a state of mind.

 

As we grow older,

We frequently say goodbye,

But life will go on.

 

As we grow older,

Faith and cherished memories,

Will sustain us through.

As we grow older,

Those involved inherit the,

Richness of aging.

As we grow older,

We understand the worst thing,

Is not the last thing!

MONEY AND TIME

Day Lily Time, Jamestown, NC

MONEY AND TIME

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

I’ve always liked the response of John D. Rockefeller, America’s first billionaire in the early 1900’s, when a reporter asked him “How much money is enough?”  The world’s richest man at the time replied “Just a little bit more.”  Inquiring minds would also like to know “How much time is enough?  And we’d probably get the same answer!  A Day Lily’s time to shine is very limited, but it is time enough to fulfill its destiny.  Have you noticed that everything on this planet has an expiration date?  We don’t want to get so caught up in chasing the money that we overlook the reality that our time on this planet is limited.  Once we stop the merry-go-round and step aside, we can begin to appreciate the short time span we have in the here and now. 

 

Money can do extraordinary things in this world for good to help others and facilitate social change.  And there will always be some sparkling bling that sings a siren song beckoning us to pull out the old charge card.  But we have to sober up and come to terms with our financial realities and aspirations to keep life in balance.  Money is primarily obtained in exchange for our life hours.  It can buy a house but not a home and many other material things that can actually become an anchor on our life.  Its pursuit can enslave anyone who trades their time with others for more of it.  We have to be cautious that the pursuit of freedom to do as we desire doesn’t result in the chains that demand all of our time and well-being in the pursuit. 

 

And no one has ever been heard to utter with their last breath that they wish they had spent more time at the office.  Many wished they had taken the time to cherish relationships.

RECLAMATION

Reclamation, Stokes County, NC

This abandoned man-made structure being reclaimed by nature serves as a  good example of how previous civilizations disappeared.  The structure is almost swallowed up by time, wood rot and the creeping vines.  

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Matthew 6:19-21

SOMETHING TO LOVE

Winner’s Check, Blue Hills CC, MO

Trevino, Watson, Couples, Azinger & Davis

I’m lovin’ the lyrics from the songbook of Jason Isbell’s album The Nashville Sound.  Some of the words from the track Something to Love include:

“I hope you find something to love,

Something to do when you feel like giving up.

A song to sing or tale to tell,

Something to love,

it’ll serve you well.

Just find what makes you happy,

And do it till you’re gone.”

I learned this lesson many years ago and it has served me well through those ensuing years.  Its nice to find a job you love so you never have to work another day the rest of your life, but that may simply not be available or not pay enough to support your family.  That’s where it’s important to find something off the clock that doesn’t have to pay anything.  In fact, it will probably cost some bucks which can be funded by your regular job.  And if that activity gives you pleasure and frequently takes your mind off the issues of your primary job for a short time, that’s an investment worth every cent.  As my wife used to say, “that’s much cheaper than therapy”!

The game of golf has provided that diversion for most of my adult life.  It gives me the opportunity to get out into nature and enjoy the company of people that I can be around five hours or so on a regular basis, provided the temperature is above fifty degrees.  Playing the game has opened endless opportunities to expand my personal and business social network way beyond anything I could have imagined.  I enjoy researching and trying all the changes to golf improvement equipment which has kept me in the game all this time.  And trying to keep in the game by staying fit gives me the incentive to join a gym and actually attend it! 

This blog has provided a lot of enjoyment and the release of creative juices that would probably have never been realized without this avenue.  It has provided an outlet combining two interests of both writing and photography.  It inspires me to read more current news articles and human-interest stories, including new releases of non-fiction books.  If I’m going to exchange my limited life hours for the pleasure of reading a book, I not only want to be entertained, but I want to learn something in the process too!  Photography and Creative writing also keep me alert to the world around me for inspiration, including traveling, volunteer work, teaching classes and listening to music. 

And once I discover something to love, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll serve me well till I’m gone!

TIME IS LIFE

Sands of Time, Jamestown, NC

I entered the full time working world as a graduate Industrial Engineer. One of the primary objectives of this career is to optimize the cost of a product or process. That usually involves optimizing the time that it takes to produce a given deliverable. This is a discipline whose mantra states that “time is money”. Living a working life around this mantra was in opposite conflict with the need to balance my time with other priorities. In fact, I worked for a Vice President at one point that called all of us young managers into his office and noted that we all seemed to be spending too much time on the golf course. He put us on notice that if he ever heard any of us had a single digit handicap, we’d be fired. He said that somewhat jokingly, but we got the message that he expected us to be spending an inordinate amount of our waking time on the job.

The opposite point of view is adhering to a mantra that “time is life”. And "time is love". To live a balanced life, we need to be conscious of the time we clock on our job life, our family life, and our spiritual life to have a full and satisfying life. It’s important to take inventory of where we spend our time—for where we spend our time is where our heart resides.

Spiritual time includes time to be still. Time to listen to the sounds of life all around us; the sound of wind gently moving through the trees, the sound of waves rhythmically breaking onto a sandy beach, the sound of a baby’s cooing in his mother’s arms, the sound of a wren singing in the first light of day, the sound of melted snow in a mountain stream rushing over smooth stones in the spring, the summer sound of a loon’s melancholy song across a northern lake at dusk, the sound of rain drops slowly falling on a metal roof in the fall, and the lonesome sound of a train whistle on a winter’s night.

We need to pause life occasionally and shake ourselves awake to the reality of time and its precious availability to us all so that we can live it to the fullest. Each of us is born with a variable number of grains of sand in our hourglass. And the hourglass is always in motion until the last grain is spent.

TIME AND PIGS

Lipstick on a Pig, Internet Domain

There’s an old story about a man leisurely driving through the countryside on a fall afternoon and passing by an apple orchard. He notices an old farmer feeding his pigs by holding them up one at a time and letting them eat the apples hanging from the trees. So the man pulls off the dirt road, walks up to the farmer and quizzically asks, “Wouldn’t it save time if you simply shook the apples onto the ground and let the pigs eat them all at once”? And the farmer looks up even more quizzically and responds, “What’s time to a pig”?

We humans are the only creatures on the planet, and possibly the universe unless you watch the ancient aliens segments on the History Channel, that have a developed frontal lobe in our brain that can ponder the future. And of course, some have a more or less developed right brain that can reason about such things as time. A pig, for instance, wakes up every morning thinking he’s going to live forever—so far, so good! But we humans have been given the capacity to understand that our mortal time is limited and there are only so many turns of our life clocks, while no man knows the exact hour and minute it will stop. We’ve also been given the capacity to ponder life after life. When you think about it, why bother if there is none?

It’s a matter of being committed to life, not simply involved in it—like a breakfast of bacon and eggs. The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed! Maybe it's time to pause and consider if we are really, really making good use of our time.

We may choose to ignore time and merrily soldier on with the pig’s mindset that life will go on forever. The pig can be excused. But we’ve all been given the priceless gift of life with the caveat that it comes with a limited amount of mortal time for a reason. And we’ve been given the free will to do with it as we please—to squander it and wake up one final morning wondering to ourselves “Is that all there is?”--or to wake up on the other side of the thin veil rejoicing in our legacy. We could argue the point forever, but that would be like wrestling with a pig. We’d get mud all over us and the pig would enjoy it. We can continue attempting to convince ourselves that our time doesn’t matter, but that would be like putting lipstick on a pig. It doesn’t change the eternal truth that it’s still a pig and our time does matter. Perhaps the answer lies in pausing time to ponder our destiny. Perhaps over a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

LOW TIDE AT LOWES

Low Tide, Lowes Foods Aisle, Jamestown, NC

"Time and tide wait for no man."—Chaucer

I always consult the NOAA tide tables before I set out to forage for food in the local grocery aisles here in the Carolina's. It’s much easier to navigate the aisles at low tide and I’ve also discovered over time that prices are lower every twelve and one-half hours during the two tidal troughs every 25 hours. That’s because the earth rotates on its axis and the moon completes one orbit every 25 hours. So, the times for high and low tides change by fifty minutes every day. That’s why you should keep a NOAA tide table handy in your coupon book at all times!

And the highest and lowest tides occur when the sun and moon are on the same side of the earth during a New Moon or on opposite sides of the earth during a Full Moon. Those periods generally create double coupon savings at low Tide, especially on beer and detergents!

The image above of a low Tide at Lowes Foods was taken close to the beer corral.
There’s a reason they call themselves Lowes.
Coincidence?
I think not!


Low Tide, Kiawah Island Beach, SC

FINDING TIME

Clock of Time, London, EN

The most rewarding things we do in life such as volunteering or exercising can be the most demanding. They're not about having time but making time. If we don't want to do them, we'll find an excuse. If we do, we'll find a way.

BEACH TIME

First Light, Wrightsville Beach, NC

Beach Time is measured in Waves not hours.

"We are so little reconciled to time that it sometimes astonishes us. "How time flies!" It's like a fish being surprised by the wetness of water--unless of course he may walk on land someday."
--C.S.Lewis.

And someday time may be meaningless to us.

TIME TO PAUSE

Wild Pig, Magdala, Israel

Post Memorial Day, 2015

There’s an old story about a man leisurely driving through the countryside on a fall afternoon and passing by an apple orchard. He notices an old farmer feeding his pigs by holding them up one at a time and letting them eat the apples hanging from the trees. So the man pulls off the dirt road, walks up to the farmer and quizzically asks, “Wouldn’t it save time if you simply shook the apples onto the ground and let the pigs eat them all at once”? And the farmer looks up even more quizzically and responds, “What’s time to a pig”?

We humans are the only creatures on the planet, and possibly the universe unless you watch the ancient aliens segments on the History Channel, that have a developed frontal lobe in our brain that can ponder the future. And of course, some have a more or less developed right brain that can reason about such things as time. A pig, for instance, wakes up every morning thinking he’s going to live forever—so far, so good! But we humans have been given the capacity to understand that our mortal time is limited and there are only so many turns of our life clocks, while no man knows the exact hour and minute it will stop. We’ve also been given the capacity to ponder life after life. When you think about it, why bother if there is none?

It’s a matter of being committed to life, not simply involved in it—like a breakfast of bacon and eggs. The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed!

But Memorial Day is a wakeup call for us all. It’s a time to pause and give thanks for all those veterans whose time was cut short to secure our tenuous freedom that’s not free. It’s a time to pause and give thanks for all those departed friends and loved ones that have influenced our life experiences and our character. And it’s a time to pause and consider if we are really, really making good use of our time.

We may choose to ignore time and merrily soldier on with the pig’s mindset that life will go on forever. The pig can be excused. But we’ve all been given the priceless gift of life with the caveat that it comes with a limited amount of mortal time for a reason. And we’ve been given the free will to do with it as we please—to squander it and wake up one final morning wondering to ourselves “Is that all there is?”--or to wake up on the other side of the thin veil rejoicing in our legacy. We could argue the point forever, but that would be like wrestling with a pig. We’d get mud all over us and the pig would enjoy it. We can continue attempting to convince ourselves that our time doesn’t matter, but that would be like putting lipstick on a pig. It doesn’t change the eternal truth that it’s still a pig and our time does matter. Perhaps the answer lies in pausing time to ponder our destiny. Perhaps over a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

BENCHMARKING TIME & LAWS

Clock of Time, London, EN

First of all, we need to establish that time is a concept invented by humanoids to make sure we’re a fashionably ten minutes late for a party. God is timeless and has no need for clocks. Will Shakespeare has observed that “Time is very slow for those who wait. Very fast for those who are scared. Very long for those who lament. Very short for those who celebrate. But for those who love, time is eternal”.

Perhaps Will had romantic love in mind when he penned those words. But they aptly apply to agape love as well. We’ve all known folks that died all too young and were cut off in the prime of their lives, but still left a lasting legacy. Then there are those who simply lived lives of quiet desperation and slipped unnoticed into the sands of time. But those who love God and love their neighbors will always respond by making a difference in their own lives and the lives of others and they will have an eternal legacy to enjoy. Those two criteria should be the benchmark by which all other laws are measured.

And it’s good to benchmark the time of our lives not by calendars or clocks, but by the life moments that matter!

SUMMER HIBISCUS

Summer Hibiscus, Jamestown, NC

A summer hibiscus bloom has very little time in the sun.
And yet, it is time enough.