Benedicamus Domino!
A key thing to living a joyful and eucharistic life is to look at time not as a thing possessed by us but as a gift given to us. Time for me has always been something which I have wasted. My motto has always been: "procrastinate now," and so I have done, putting off till tomorrow what I could have done sooner and without so much anguish and stress. Oh, it is true that I have made a game of it, trying to outwit time and seeing how quickly I could get something done at the last minute, and unfortunately for me, evidence has supported my theory that I work well under pressure. Of course, the real meaning of the good marks and the "well done"s on reports and the like is that they would have been better marks if I had worked more steadily.
So, one of the things that I am trying to do with each day is to look at it as a block of time in which things should be done, rather than a block of time which is mine to use as I choose. Of course, giving myself free time is not out of the question, but learning to see time as a valuable resource and a precious thing is necessary for many reasons over and above the one just mentioned of ceasing to procrastinate.
Firstly, time as I know it is not reality. This is a fervent belief that I have. Time is reality which is given to us in little chunks so that we can perceive it. If we were to see the whole of reality without the filter of days and nights, hours and minutes to protect us, we would basically cease to exist, or at the very least go stark raving mad with the awesomeness of what reality really is. Now, stay with me here. My belief is that reality is dynamic, infinite and always and eternally present. Everything is perceivable at once in reality, in the true reality that we can't see. We have been given time therefore to make reality more manageable for sundered and broken senses to perceive, for this sundering was an effect of the fall. Paradise wasn't just a garden with thornless roses. It was so much more than that! It was God with man, God present on earth and man able to taste something of God's eternity. Once the fall happened, it is said that Paradise was too painful for man to be in now that he had made himself weak by taking too soon what would have been offered him by God at a future time. Still, what's done is done, so we now live in time and subject to its influence upon us.
However, if we can learn to view it as neither an enemy nor a thing to be squandered heedlessly, we will be able to make a friend of time, to consecrate it and make it as eternally present as possible. The key here is attitude. Worrying overmuch about the future is not going to help. While it is true that planning for the future is a good thing, it is not good to put all our trust in those plans. Now is the time when we should be living, though not in a heedless way. It's moderation which must hold sway here, for epicurian pleasure-seeking is not the way to value time more, but rather seeking to please the deep self, the soul, the centre of our being.
Time came to us when we were given the mercy of death, as I believe. We were given death as an aid to our fallen nature, for if we had remained immortal after we corrupted ourselves, we would never have been able to escape that fall. We would merely have kept on growing, but in a crooked way, and our decay would not have been fleshly but within the soul. We would, in short, have become fallen beings like the demons, for nothing would have checked our progress into evil and cruelty. So death, while not truly natural to humanity, was given as a mercy, and so time became important to us.
I, therefore, if I am to find the joy in life, must both learn to live in the moment but also have a consciousness that one day my body will cease to exist and my soul will be the thing that meets God. So, it is important for me to treat my body with respect, as it is a sacred thing, but also to realize that it is not the only aspect of me, that my soul must also be treated with love and attention and not be left to languish in the dark and dust of human sin and decay. The only way to do this is to consciously work to acknowledge those things which get in the way of peace and joy and to root them out. Anger, pride, acquisitiveness, gluttony, idleness, despondency, spiritual malaise and vainglory are all sicknesses peculiar to the ego, the little "me" that is created as we grow older in this world, and believing that time is our own is also an illness of individualism. I want to change this about myself. I want all that does not bear good fruit in myself to be killed off. In fact, I need this to happen, and it is only God's help that can accomplish this fully. I can begin it, but He must bring it to perfection.
I once had a dream. It was a dream of true joy. I was a child when I had it, and I actually recall versions of it sprinkled throughout my childhood. I toiled up a mountain in hot, burning sun, and then I began to go down the other side, and I came to a gate. It was an ordinary garden gate, and when I opened it and went through, I found myself in a pleasant meadow of short, springy grass. There was a stream in the meadow that I could hear, and the breeze was cool but not cold. There was a mist in the air and it was slightly humid but not sticky, and I felt wonderful after having been in the hot sun. I lay on my back and just enjoyed, and later when I woke up, I called this meadow Cloud Land. I've never come there since childhood, but I think I once had a dream that told me how I might get there, or how I might find whatever Cloud Land symbolized for me as a child.
This dream happened when I was an adult, and I recall it vividly. I was with two other people, and we were dressed up against a chilly wind, and we all were trying to push a shopping cart up a steep hill. It was an ordinary grocery cart. Well, as we walked along, we got warm, so we took off our coats and put them into the cart. The cart had been empty before this. So then, we had to remove sweaters because of being warm. Then as we went, we removed long-sleeved shirts, and we kept removing layers till we were in T-shirts. Then, when we got to a certain point, they decided to turn back, but I knew I had to go on, and the day was very hot and I was very thirsty, but I left them there and pushed the cart alone, and somehow I knew that if I could get to the point of removing the last layer of clothing, I would be free of impediments, as free as I was when I was a child. However, of course, I woke up just as I had this revelation, but I think that the dream contained a powerful truth. We can't simply mire ourselves in our own way of doing things. We can't shy away from the journey of life simply because it seems difficult, and there will be times of testing when we will have to make choices that are difficult, but it is a fact that we must be forever confronting ourselves and discarding parts which are dead or dying, which are diseased or broken, because if we discard those things, God will change them into true and living parts and return them to us. This corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality!
So, I must learn that to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven, but that these times and seasons will never be mine to order, no matter how much I might like to do so. As ever, may God help!
Deo Gratias!
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