Category: Reflections

Our Unending Relationship To Time

Photo by Curtis MacNewton on Unsplash

 

Lenten Series Blog

 

A Lenten Reflection from Stephen Guinn, Central Seminary Associate Dean for instructional support and Student Success

 

Outside of work, family consumes the remaining hours of a weekday and the whole of the weekend.  The question of time always centers around the family.  Who will take this child there?  Does the family have time to do everything?  What is most important to do/accomplish with our time? It feels many days that we are a slave to time; its continuity, its consistency, and its inevitability.

When I think about the glory of God being the human person fully alive, I consider our unending relationship to time.  How does time affect my sense of being fully alive? On one hand, there is the eschatalogical reality of eternity with God.  “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) On the other hand, there is our present reality that a day may feel like a thousand years, but I still need have my daughter at violin practice at 4:30pm.

My repentance (regret?) lately is that there is not enough time.  Not enough time to get all the stuff done that needs to be done.  Not enough time to spend with each of my three daughters.  Not enough time to enjoy those hobbies and practices that refresh the soul.  I am enslaved!

However, oddly enough, it is time in a calendar (holy days and seasons) that frees my soul.  I can appreciate that Lent and the coming Holy Week establishes time for this journey. Time is made.  The 40 days are set.  Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday is on the calendar. This time of reflection lives on its own, independent of my schedule and my ability to make time to engage fully practices.

Whether I make room for it or not, the story of Christ, the marked season of remembering the story of the cross and resurrection, exists as a companion. It is time that walks alongside me. It is always there.  Sometimes I forget it is there, and sometimes it speaks to me without ceasing.  The grace given to me is that the story has made time for me.  In that grace, I feel more alive!