This series on time will certainly be an instance where I will learn more than I will teach. If time and I had a facebook relationship status, it would be “it’s complicated.” My waking and sleeping are at odd times and of irregular durations. I question whether I can change that, mostly because I don’t really want to. It works for me – it’s a creative space – until it doesn’t. Exhaustion, lethargy, migraines. I don’t really want to keep regular hours, but I also don’t want to let time slip by unnoticed, to miss the chance to meet God. I’ve started reading the book we will be using – Dorothy Bass’s Receiving the Day – and there is wisdom there. (Nice pick, Genny Rowley, Awesome Co-pastor!) Bass is a gentle author that creates space for us to find ourselves.
She begins the book talking about datebooks, little blocks of time we endeavor to fill with productivity. It turns time into a commodity to be used, managed, and consumed. And, like all commodities, we think that if we can just have more we will be happy. Like our study of Jubilee, Bass suggests that there must be a better way and, oddly enough, that way might be found in our great Christian tradition.
Over the course of this series we will look at the shape of the day, the week, and the year, but this week we start with the framework of time as a gift. In the background of any consideration of time is the fact that we will someday run out. Not for a day or a project, but completely. We think that our task is to fill the time we have, to get things done, not to waste it. But as we look at the rhythm of God’s time, we see that it is filled with feasts and fasts; work and rest; grief and laughter – and that every day sees God’s mercies given anew. We need not justify our time; God has already done so.
Please join us this Sunday, 11am at Kidd Springs Rec Center, as we celebrate the gift of the time that we have.
Grace & Peace,
Scott